


Ink of Seshat

by paburke



Series: Sobek Drowning [3]
Category: Criminal Minds, Grimm (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paburke/pseuds/paburke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not long after the BAU's visit to Portland, Nick's looking for answers.  He finds more questions, a riddle and a code.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ink of Seshat

A sequel to Sobek Drowning (of sorts) 

*cm*grimm*

A piece of the book binding was wedged in the shelf.  Nick wiggled and finagled and finally it pulled free… opening a door to a secret bookshelf.  Nick’s jaw dropped.  Aunt Marie’s trailer had been in his possession for almost a year.  He had searched it from one end to the other.  Juliette and Monroe had searched it and none of them had found this secret bookshelf.  Nick wasn’t an idiot; he knew that these secrets had to be kept if the trailer fell into Wesen hands.  A wesen could tear the silver fifth wheel to shreds and still not find it.  As long as Nick could restrain himself and stay out of the bookshelf except for emergencies, his scent would not attract attention to this wall.  

Still, it was open now and Nick was sure that the answers to the key were in here.  He just had to find them.  Despite himself, his eyes were drawn to the simple books at the end of the bottom shelf; four labeled KB, two labeled DR and seven labeled MK   KB would be his mother’s initials.  MK would be Aunt Marie’s.  Nick didn’t know anyone off the top of his head with the initial’s DR, but he grabbed those journals with the other two authors’, careful to re-hide the secret shelf.  It didn’t take long to realize that these books detailed personal mistakes and weaknesses.  Since he was mentioned in both of his relative’s books, what did that make him?  

The DR book was different.  The writer (Nick was sure she was a woman) would record everything from startling insights to Wesen hierarchy to the speech patterns of varies species.  She even included poems, some of her own and some that had been passed down from generation to generation of Wesen.  She detailed the symbolism important to each type.  Then there were her poems of being a Grimm, her despair and fear and the blurring of reality.  Nick realized that this woman, as intelligent as she obviously was, also contended with some sort of mental health issues.  It didn’t help that he noticed that within certain poems, she alluded to the key.  Her mentions of blood and death were few and far between.  From a woman suffering from depression, among other things, he would have expected more.  Was she a Grimm like him?  Always looking for a solution that didn’t end in the morgue?  Or was her medical condition so debilitating that she had the eyes of a Grimm and none of the drive to keep the balance?  Still she had the answers Nick needed, but was she even alive to share them?

Nick had to find the owner of the journal.  

He tore through the trailer looking at genealogies but it was one of Aunt Marie’s books that mentioned a cousin ‘Diana’ that was an English professor and also didn’t adapt well to inheriting the Grimm.  In another book, Aunt Marie mentioned that Diana had borne a son and in yet another book, her son checked her into a mental hospital.  She had been diagnosed with paranoia and depression among others.  Aunt Marie worried about her safety even though she was hidden under her married name of Reid.

Finally, Nick had enough clues to start searching.  He was careful to use a public computer and to stay out of the view of any Wesen, even the friendly ones.  Nick didn’t want loose lips to lead to a woman who couldn’t defend herself.

It took months of searching before Nick found Diana Reid in a sanatorium in Las Vegas.  He borrowed Bud’s car, took a week of vacation, withdrew enough cash to last and drove south.  He kissed Juliette adieu and promised to stay safe.  He had his phone with him, but off. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror the whole way.  As far as he knew, no one was following him.  He slept in the car and avoided every wesen he could.  He would visit Diana Reid in the sanatorium as soon as visiting hours began.

*cm*grimm*

“Ms. Reid?”

She looked up and smiled, confused.  It was hard not to compare this frail, broken woman to his vibrant and strong Aunt Marie.  Ms. Reid probably had several more years of life to go, but Aunt Marie had been stronger on her deathbed.

“I’m sorry for visiting without warning.  My name is Nick Burkhardt.”

She blinked and her eyes unclouded the slightest.  “Kelly’s boy? Ah, last of the line.”

“Yes, ma’am.  I was hoping you could tell me a bit about my mother… and my Aunt Marie.  Did you know my Aunt Marie?”

Ms. Reid patted the visitor’s chair.  “Please sit.  Yes, I’d love to tell you about Kelly and Marie.”

“Thank you, Ms. Reid,” Nick told her fervently.

“Call me, Aunt Diana,” she prompted.  “We are family.  Second cousins, once removed.”

“I wasn’t sure of the relation,” Nick admitted.  “How well did you know my mother?”

“I spent summers with her and Marie at her grandfather’s house.”

“Fun?” Nick asked hopefully.

“When it was just us girls, yes.  But we were there for a purpose.”

“Training.”

“Yes.  There was a high likelihood of one of us gaining the inheritance.”

Nick searched her eyes and mourned.  “In the end, you all got it.”

Diana took a shaky breath.  “Yes.  We did.”

Nick watched her struggle to control her fear.  “Tell me of the fun times.”  He needed her on an even keel.

Diana nodded.  “Your mother.  Oh dear, I hated playing hide and seek with her, even when she was young.  I was the oldest,” she told Nick.  “Marie was the youngest, poor girl.  But your mother could disappear whenever she wanted.  Even, or rather, especially in places when you swore there was no place to go.  Your mother could vanish.  There are four parts to the inheritance,” and her voice took on the authority of a professor.  “The physical, the mental, the instinct and the artist.  Before the inheritance takes hold, there are flashes of talent in one or all of these arenas.  Your mother excelled in the physical and the instinct, the artistic side was highly practiced and she studied hard.  I was solely the mental and truly, I never gained the other parts.  Your Aunt Marie?  The artistic and the intellectual, the others were well supplemented when the inheritance fell on her shoulders.  From the things that Marie told me, you had all four _before_.  She knew you would gain the inheritance, but she was determined that you’d have a normal life for as long as possible.  She worked hard at her deficiencies so that you could be free.”

Nick leaned forward with a smile, eager to hear all of this.  He almost wished he could have brought Monroe.  The Blutbad would have loved the history lesson.  Distracted, Nick nearly fell out of his chair when there was a knock on the open door.  

“Hello, I’m Dr. Leslie Gheno,” the pretty blonde in a labcoat said.  “I’m responsible for…”

Her visage shifted and she snarled.  Hexenbiest!  Nick leapt forward and reached for his gun, but Aunt Diana stopped him.  “It’s okay, Nick.  Leslie is my doctor.”

Nick was too shocked to do anything but stare at Aunt Diana.  Why on earth would she agree to a _hexenbiest_?  Nick could think of multiple reasons why a hexenbiest would agree to treat a Grimm and none of them were pleasant.  “ _Why?_ ”

Aunt Diana waved away the question.  “It’s okay, Nick.  Leslie, thank you for visiting but Nick and I have some things to discuss.”

Gheno looked like she wanted to argue, but Aunt Diana straightened and for the first time, Nick saw her steel.  Gheno agreed reluctantly.  Nick was sure that she would try to eavesdrop or order someone else to do it.  He couldn’t ask the truly important questions now, like what was the key for?  Once the hexenbiest withdrew, Nick dropped into the visitor’s chair.

“I went through a lot of trouble to hide this visit from any wesen,” he had to tell her.

Diana smiled, understanding and thankful.  “I have a deal with a certain Royal family.  I’m safe here but I do appreciate the thought.”

“What’s the deal?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Nick gaped at her.  “Yes, it does.”

“No, Nick.  It’s a good deal.  Everyone is safe if I stay here.  This is the best for which I could hope.  I wouldn’t survive as an active Grimm and if I die, the inheritance falls to my son.”

 "What are you sacrificing?” The Royals and hexenbiest would not protect a Grimm without something in return.

 "Nothing important, Nick.  Don’t worry about it.”

 Nick was definitely going to worry about it.  Nick remembered the list of open positions on the sanatorium bulletin board.  He would study it intently on his way out and try to find some trustworthy wesen to apply.

“Why don’t you take my journals?”

Aunt Diana certainly had he attention.  She slowly shuffled to a bookshelf and started stacking books.

“You just leave them in plain sight?”  With a hexenbiest skulking around?

Aunt Diana smiled and again he saw the hint of Aunt Marie intelligence.  “They’re in code.”

If they were encoded enough that a hexenbiest couldn’t understand them after years of trying, Nick wasn’t hopeful that he would be able to.  “What’s the code?”

Aunt Diana waved him over to the shelf.  “It’s different for every page.  Look, I’ll show you.”  And she did.  

Nick couldn’t help but be impressed with all of the different codes used in every book.  He walked out of the sanatorium with a couple of job applications, a deep and abiding respect for his Aunt’s intelligence and a large pile of books that might hold the family secrets. 

He also left behind a fuming hexenbiest.  Gheno was going to cause problems.  Nick had to get some friendly wesen hired to protect Aunt Diana as soon as possible. He turned on his phone. He had calls to make and honorable wesen to find. Since this Grimm was known in wesen community, he didn't need to hide anymore.

*cm*grimm*

When Spencer’s phone rang and it was a familiar ‘Vegas number, he hurried to find some privacy in the police department.  “Hello, this is Doctor Reid.”

“Dr. Reid, this is Dr. Gheno, your mother’s physician here at the sanatorium.”

“Is my mother okay?”

“She’s mostly fine, but she recently had a visitor that upset her and she refuses to take him off her accepted visitors list.”

“Who is the visitor?”

“Nick Burkhardt.”

The name brought to mind a talented Portland detective but what business would he have with Spencer’s mother?  Surely it was another person with the same name.  “What upset my mother about the visit?”

“He was asking her opinion on some old police cases.”

“Was he a detective?”

“Yes.”

The odds were so far against it… There was no way… “From Portland?”

Silence, the kind of deadly silence that Spencer had experienced when negotiating with psychopaths.   “I was unaware that Detective Burkhardt had discussed the situation with you.”

He hadn’t but Spencer had five years on the job that pointed suspicion at Dr. Gheno rather than Detective Burkhardt.  Burkhardt, for some reason, was far from his designated territory and worrying his mother’s doctor with his questions.  What possible connection could have led Burkhardt across state lines that Gheno didn’t want linked?  “Thank you for informing me of my mother’s medical condition, Dr. Gheno.  I will address the situation at my earliest convenience.”

“With your verbal consent over the phone, I can place Detective Burkhardt on a no admittance list and there shouldn’t be any further incidents.”

Spencer thought about it.  Gheno was pushing, showing her hand.  Obviously, Gheno wanted Burkhardt far from Diana Reid.  By caving to the doctor’s demands, he should be protecting his mother until she could be removed from the situation.   “Let’s do that,” Spencer told her.

“Very good.  I’m sorry to interrupt your day with such a petty matter.”

“No, no, thank you.  Please continue to keep me informed.”

After a few more pleasantries, they hung up.  Spencer didn’t wait for the phone to show him the stats from the call.  He used his speed dial to call Garcia and reached out to the nearest officer’s desk to call his mother.  

Garcia answered first.

Spencer cut off whatever witty greeting she had planned.  “Garcia, I need you to check on the whereabouts of Detective Nick Burkhardt.  We worked with him in Portland.  Has he been to Vegas and when?”

She grasped the importance of the call immediately.  “On it.  His cell phone pinged two cell towers in Portland today but yesterday he was on the Strip.  In Las Vegas.  I’ll confirm with the airlines…”

“Hello?” Diana Reid answered the phone.

“Mom?  Why did Detective Burkhardt visit you yesterday?”  The FBI agent was pleased that Garcia was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and type.

“Spencer?  How did you know?”

“Dr. Gheno called me and wanted him added to a No Admittance list.  Why did Burkhardt visit you?”

“He’s a distant relative,” Diana informed him.  “He found one of my journals in his family’s effects and hoped that I had answers.  He’s a good boy.  Marie did a good job with him.  I told him he could call me Aunt Diana.  I hope you told Dr. Gheno ‘no’.”

 “No, I told her she could.”

 “Why would you do that?”

 “Because, her insistence was worrying me and I was afraid of what would happen to you if I put up a fight.  I can get him off the list later or we can move you and you can write your own No Admittance List.”

 “Really, Spencer.  There is no need to worry.  You’re starting to sound like Nick.”

 Spencer switched how he referred to the Detective, if nothing else than to keep his mother talking.  “Nick’s worried about you?”

 “Yes.  He wants me to switch institutions.  He did not get along with Dr. Gheno.”

 “Why?”

 “The two just don’t get along.”  Diana hmmed.  “I might have made it worse when I gave Nick some of my journals that I don’t let Leslie read.”

 “You gave Nick some of your journals?”  Spencer couldn’t believe his ears.

 “I had written down some family things in there and he was interested.  I had no reason to refuse the request.”  Nick now had journals that Spencer had never read.  For as long as he could remember, Diana had had two sets of journals.  One set Gheno and Spencer routinely reviewed and other set were off limits.

 “Mom.  What do those journals contain?”  Spencer had never heard his mother deflect more.

 “I told you, Spencer.  Family things.”  She paused and finally said, “If anything happens to me, you should really talk to Nick before you do anything else.”

 Spencer’s blood ran cold and in his other ear, he could hear Garcia catch her breath and her fingers pause on her keyboard.  “That’s it,” Spencer declared.  “You are leaving that institution today.  I’m getting a plane in an hour and will be there by midnight.”

 “Oh Spencer.  There is no need to overreact.  Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

 “I’m coming.”

 “No.  You are not.”  It was the surest Spencer had ever heard his mother, it made him second guess everything.  “Maybe you should call Nick now.  He can reassure you.  He can tell you about the bodyguard he doesn’t think I’d recognize.  I’m safe here.  I expect to get a phone call from you on Sunday, as usual.  I love you, Spencer.”

 And she hung up on him.  His mother!  Hung up on him!  

 “Garcia?”

 “Do you want a plane ticket to Vegas or Detective Burkhardt’s number?”

 “Let’s start with Burkhardt and if you could get me a schedule of flight departures?”

 “Done.”  And then she rattled off the ten-digit number.

 “Thanks, Garcia.”

 “No prob, sweet cheeks.  I’ll look into your mom’s doc and see why she’s acting squirrely.  Keep me informed and I’ll put you on the first flight to Vegas if you breathe the word.”

 “Will do.”  Spencer would need her help one way or the other.  He heard her disconnect the call and then he used the phone number to call the detective that was also a relative.

 “Detective Burkhardt,” the man answered his phone.

 “Detective, this is Dr. Spencer Reid with the BAU.”

 “Wait a minute, please,” and then the background noise hushed.  “Dr. Reid.  I… This is a surprise.”

 “What’s a surprise is you visiting my mother yesterday.”

 “Reid,” Burkhardt breathed.  “Oh.” And then again a more emphatic, “Ohhhh.”  The detective previously hadn’t connected Diana Reid in a Vegas mental institution to Dr. Spencer Reid of the FBI.

 “You visited my mother,” Spencer repeated.

 “Yes.  I did.”

 “What happened?”

 “Happened,” the detective echoed and Spencer was reminded that he was facing a more-informed, expert interviewer.  Spencer was going to receive exactly as much information as Burkhardt was willing to give and not one clue more.  “I was hoping that she would have answers concerning my parents.”  Spencer remembered that the man’s parents had died in a suspicious car accident when he was a child.

 “And did she?”

 “A few.”

 “Why did she give you her journals?”

 “She thought they might hold memories.  She mostly wrote childhood occurrences in those.”

 “Oh?”

 “Like how my grandfather used to take her, my mother and my aunt into the woods to practice tracking, or my grandmother would speak nothing but German to them.”

 “My mother knows how to track?”  Spencer did not know that.  “In the woods?”  He couldn’t visualize his mother tracking.  _His mother?  Tracking?_

 “Up to a point,” Burkhardt admitted.  “It sounds like she was better at the book learning and languages and my mother excelled at the outdoor lessons.  Aunt Marie was second to both of them.”

 Interesting.  “What else?”

 “Honestly, I skimmed over most of the stuff about your mom thus far.”

 Spencer could understand that but… “Why wouldn’t Mom let me read them?”

 “My grandfather, your great uncle, was… not a good person.”

 Spencer tried to figure out if the man had been abusive or a murderer.  He, his wife and most of that generation had died long before Spencer and Burkhardt had been born.  From what was his mother protecting him?  And why did it involve Gheno?  “Surely the statute of limitations applies?”

 Burkhardt hmmed.  “Dr. Reid, can I get back to you?  I’m in the middle of a case.”

 “One last question: Is my mother safe?  How effective is the bodyguard you hired?”

 “Oh,” Burkhardt sounded completely chagrinned.  “She noticed already?”

 “Yes.  How much do I owe you?  My mother’s protection is my responsibility.”

 “I used a favor to get the bodyguard a job in the… ah… sanitarium.  I’m not actually paying’em anything.  They’re just keeping an eye on Aunt Diana, just in case.”

 “Are you using the plural to hide the gender pronouns or do you have a bodyguard on my mother every shift?”

 Burkhardt made a sound of concern.  “Look, my captain’s glaring.  I _have_ to get back to work.  Don’t worry about Aunt Diana, now that I know about you, she’s in less danger than I thought.”  The detective hung up without answering the FBI agent’s pointed question.  Spencer had a feeling that Burkhardt was telling the truth and omitting huge portions of the situation.

 “Reid?” Hotch asked from the doorway.  The BAU had their own case to solve, but at the first opportunity Spencer was going to insist on a skype chat with his cousin and if that didn’t work, he’d fly out to Portland and make him answer questions.  Spencer would sic Garcia on the sanatorium records, she’d be able to find the bodyguard(s) in five minutes.

 “Coming,” Spencer told his boss.  He walked forward and texted Garcia at the same time.  The computer tech would find answers.

 “Are you able to concentrate?” Hotch demanded.

 Spencer put his phone away.  “Now I am.  Sorry.  My mom’s doctor is acting squirrely.”

 “Squirrely,” Hotch echoed, slightly amused and sympathetically alarmed.

 “Garcia’s word.  She’s looking into it when she has time.  Everyone else seems to think that it’s just a mystery and not something over which I should be concerned.”

 “But you are concerned,” Hotch read his body language.  

 “Slightly.  I can put it aside for now.  The two people with answers won’t take any more calls from me today.”

 “Let me know if you need to leave.”

 “I will,” Spencer promised.

 Hotch watched him and all of his clues.  Once he was satisfied, he turned and led Spencer back into the bullpen and the BAU case.

 *cm*grimm*

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer Reid decides to surprise his cousin with a visit.

Spencer Reid paid the cab driver and carried his luggage to the front door of the well-maintained, but older, house. He saw the front curtain twitch. Good. He had scheduled his flight to arrive when someone was home. He hadn’t called, because Nick was exceedingly good at dodging communication. 

Juliette opened the door with a genuine smile before he had a chance to knock. “Spencer! This is a pleasant surprise.”

Spencer had the grace to be embarrassed. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Come in, come in. I’ll show you to the guest room.”

“Oh,” Spencer looked down at his carry-on. “No, I can get a room at the hotel. That had been my intention. I just wanted to stop by first and let you know I’m in town.”

“Nonsense. Nick will want you to stay here.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure…”

“I am,” Juliette interrupted firmly. “Nick wouldn’t want you staying anywhere else in the city. You’re staying.”

Spencer knew too many strong women to argue. “Thank you?”

Juliette smiled. “This way to the guest room.” Spencer followed her up the stairs. “Bathroom’s there,” she indicated. “And here’s your room.” Spencer walked into the homey bedroom. It even had a quilt on the bed. “Nick just changed the sheets last week,” Juliette said with a playful grin. “He said that you had hit your limit on Nick’s secret-keeping and that you’d be coming any day.”

Spencer dropped the bag on the bed in his surprise. He had forgotten just how talented a profiler Nick was. Spencer hadn’t tried to hide his frustration with his cousin’s tendency to miss their skype chats. Spencer had more screen time with Juliette than Nick.

Juliette stepped forward to kiss his cheek. “Told you he wanted you to stay with us.”

Spencer didn’t dodge the show of affection, per se, but he did cut it short by reaching into his messenger bag and pulling out a journal. “I visited my mother last month and she insisted that I deliver this to Nick.” His mother had been participating in Nick’s avoidance strategies; demanding a visit before Spencer saw Nick. 

Juliette accepted the journal but didn’t open it. “How about I put this in the safe and start some coffee while you get settled in? Just come down whenever you’re ready.”

Spencer mulled the idea of his mother’s ramblings being so important that Juliette –who had never met her- considered a safe to be the appropriate storage place. Obviously, Nick stored Diana’s other writings in the safe. Spencer couldn’t understand why. He had read (memorized) the journal and found nothing of value.

He heard the front door open and Juliette’s soft, “Oh, Nick.”

Spencer was on the stairs, close enough to hear his cousin rumbled, “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He stepped onto the landing and was horrified by the sling and the bruises darkening every exposed section of skin. He was sure Nick’s clothes were hiding even worse ones and that body stance? Bruised ribs.

“You look like you got trampled by a rhinoceros!” he blurted.

Nick stared at him for a second before his shoulders started shaking with laughter. “Ow. Ow. Don’t make me laugh. Ow.” 

“What happened to you?” the agent demanded.

“I got trampled by a rhinoceros?” Nick let his fiancée help him to the couch. “I was in the suspect’s escape route.”

Spencer remembered De Dau and Nick standing in the way that time as well. He did have a talent for predicting and blocking the way.

“Are you working tomorrow?” asked Juliette.

Nick tried to nod. “Nothing on the streets but the captain wants me in the interview room for the rest of the weekend.”

“I’m making you some of your tea,” Juliette declared. “Spencer, would you like a cup?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble. I’ll just brew a pot.”

Spencer dragged a chair over from the corner. Nick might be willing to share the couch but any minute jostling would pain him. “You should be out on medical leave or desk duty. Suspects can become violent when questioned.”

“I’ll have Hank with me the whole time,” Nick promised. “It’s an important case.”

“They’re all important cases,” Spencer retorted, but maybe Nick wasn’t missing his calls just because he didn’t want to give answers.

Nick didn’t argue.

“You need to heal so that you’ll be at your best.”

Nick just grinned at him. “I will. Don’t worry, cousin.”

Juliette returned to the living room with a tea tray. She had a set of mugs instead of teacups. Nick got ‘You’ve never met a police officer like me!’ and Spencer was given a plain blue one. “I wasn’t sure if you liked milk or sugar, so it’s on the tray. I’ll go start dinner. Since someone will do anything to get out their turn.”

Nick acknowledged the tease with a soft look, settled back and drank his plain, contentment easing the lines of stress on his face. Spencer sipped it, to judge how to fix it to his preferences. He was surprised that he liked it as it was. He remembered this. “My mom used to give this to me before bed!”

Nick blinked and looked down at his mug. “Aunt Marie used to do the same.” The pain in his face was more mental than physical.

“What is the brand and type?” Spencer would get his own for unsettled nights.

“It’s a special loose leaf blend. Family recipe, apparently. I have a friend at a tea shoppe in town that gets the ingredients and mixes it for me. We’ll make sure you have some when you leave. Do you have a mug or pot for brewing loose leaf?”

Spencer shook his head, ‘no.’

“We’ll get you something,” Nick promised. He finished the last drops and was obviously debating if more was worth the pain of moving.

Spencer put down his mug and carefully lifted the pot. “More?”

“Yes. Please.”

Spencer concentrated on pouring the hot liquid without spilling a drop. Nick didn’t need to be injured due to his clumsiness.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A comfortable silence wrapped them. Spencer was remembering late nights with his mother, drinking tea and listening to her read fairy tales. Spencer wondered why she stopped. Sure, he outgrew the childhood fiction, but the tea would have been welcome for years to come.

Dinner was quiet and Nick fell asleep in the middle. It took both Juliette and Spencer to transport him into bed without adding to his pain. She wouldn’t have been able to do it without him.

Spencer drifted to sleep content. The visit was not proceeding as planned or expected, but it was… good.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer's quest for answers lead to more questions and the riddle of family secrets.

Juliette knocked quietly on Spencer’s door the next morning.

“I’m awake,” he called.

“And decent?” she teased.

“Yes’m.”

Juliette was chuckling as she opened the door. “Can you spare a moment? Nick and I could use your help.”

Spencer immediately put down his book on the bedspread. He could guess the problem and he was right.

“I can do it,” Nick was grumbling as Spencer and Juliette walked into the bedroom. There was a half-empty glass on the bedside table. He had already taken his pain medication and from the lack of drips clinging to the side of the cup, it had been a while ago. Nick had taken it as soon as he awoke and then had waited for the effects.

And he was still too sore to get himself out of bed without assistance.

“This way’s easier on all of us,” Juliette answered him.

It didn’t take much maneuvering for Spencer and Juliette to lift Nick to his feet. From there he shuffled to the bathroom.

“I could probably call his captain,” Spencer offered.

Juliette shook her head. “Hank’s coming to pick him up and will watch out for him. He’ll just be miserable and in pain here. There, he’ll be useful and in pain. He won’t stay home, Spencer.” She smiled, rueful and accepting. “This is the man and the job I’m going to marry. Come on, let’s go down stairs. He’s going to want his coffee and we have quite a few errands to run today. He’ll be fine once he gets moving.”

*grimm*cm*

The bell over the opening door jiggled merrily. The many and varied smells wafted into the street. Spencer eagerly followed Juliette into the Tea Shoppe. The windows offered the most lighting in the room, but with the window dressings and carpet, there was still a homey feel. A pretty brunette was summoned by the bell and she greeted Juliette with a genuine smile and by name.

“Rosalee,” Juliette answered back. “This is Spencer Reid, Nick’s cousin. He needs some of the family special blend.”

Alarm and fear flitted across the other woman’s face and then she looked at Juliette and was obviously comforted. Juliette tried to hide her headshake behind Spencer’s back and Rosalee’s understanding flooded her body language. Spencer refused to grit his teeth and make his frustration with all the secrets known.

Then Rosalee nodded and stepped forward to shake Spencer’s hand. “You must be Diana’s son. I’m honored to meet you.”

Spencer was momentarily stunned at the word choice. Why use ‘honor’? The common vernacular was ‘pleased.’ “You know my mother?”

“I know of your mother. Nick and I have been investigating her condition.”

Spencer brightened. He was the last person to cast stones as to alternative medicines. He had sought out a renowned geneticist for assistance with his migraines. He wasn’t sure what an herbalist could do that the doctors couldn’t though. “And your conclusions?”

Rosalee hedged, “You should discuss everything with Nick and Diana.” She didn’t have legal doctor-patient privacy privilege but her words inferred as much discretion. She would not discuss the health of anyone not in the room.

It was Spencer’s mother’s health and yet Rosalee listed the detective first. The genius was missing something obvious.

“Let me get your tea,” Rosalee offered. She filled a canister with great familiarity and confidence, even with the subpar lighting. When she named a reasonable price, Spencer was eager to pay.

Juliette had a long list of errands, so she didn’t want to dawdle. She ushered Spencer out the door impressively efficiently. Spencer waited until they were both seat-belted in to the car to grumble, “Oh, I wanted to get a business card and see if I can order over the phone.”

Juliette promptly took the key out of the ignition. “Might as well ask now.”

“You wait here,” Spencer urged Juliette to wait outside. “I’ll just be a minute.” He saw enough of Juliette’s face to know that _she knew_ that Spencer was up to something.

Rosalee was obviously unnerved at Spencer returning without his escort. “Forgot something,” she asked, steadily.

“Yes. I was hoping for a business card and can I have some shipped to me in DC whenever I am low on supplies?”

Rosalee sighed softly and pulled a business card from behind the register. “Of course.” She underlined the website and the phone number before handing over the card.

Spencer accepted the card but asked, “Why are you an accessory to Nick’s secrets?”

Rosalee eyed him carefully and finally told the truth, at least part of it. “Nick found out that my brother was… selling horrible things. Nick stopped him, but never reported him. I don’t know why. And when he died, Nick could have just gone through the motions, expecting that he was killed by some of his nastier clientele or his sources. Nick didn’t do that, he hunted down my brother’s killers with as much determination as if he was innocent. Nick, despite… everything, sees all people as worthy of his best. He gave me his best when most wouldn’t.”

“Horrible thing?”

Rosalee shook her head. “Talk to Nick. He’s a good… man. Please leave now. Juliette’s waiting.”

The profiler in Spencer read her body language. She would not relent. He would convey the new clues to Garcia and then return with some leverage.

Juliette was waiting patiently in the car. “Get what you needed?” She wasn’t asking about the obvious business card in his hand.

“No,” Spencer sulked.

Juliette shook her head in commiseration. “You’re better off wearing Nick down.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“Not my secrets, Spencer. They’re yours.”

“But why all the secrets?” Spencer burst with frustration. “It’s my life, shouldn’t I know it?”

Juliette wasn’t surprised. “You know Nick and your mother are just protecting you.”

“I’m an FBI agent. An experienced one. It’s my job to protect everyone else.”

“What do you know about the rest of Nick’s family?” Juliette changed the subject, but with enough intent that Spencer answered the question.

“Detective Griffin called Nick’s guardian, ‘Bad Ass Aunt Marie.’ She was given custody when Nick was twelve and he lost his parents in a car accident, that was not a car accident.” Spencer wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask Nick or Garcia for a more thorough background. “She and Nick’s mother and my mother spent summers at their grandparents’ house and there are more secrets wrapped up in that time, as well.”

“You should investigate Marie Kessler’s death,” Juliette told him. “It will give you perspective.”

“I will.” Spencer would follow every lead because it would ultimately help him understand his mother better.

“Cheer up,” Juliette said. “We have a couple more stops to make.”

The stop at the conventional tea shop for a mug and a tea strainer was interesting in the sub-culture and easy since it didn’t have any of the underlying tension of the previous one. Juliette stopped at a doughnut shop and then at the farmer’s market.

It was at the farmer’s market that Spencer finally noticed the shadow. The man was dark and slight and average looking, but he was completely aware of his surroundings, specifically Juliette. It took Spencer until the third sighting to realize the man was standing in the way of the most probably danger entry point.

“Do you know a lot of people here?” Spencer asked. She was smiling more at certain people.

Juliette shrugged as she looked around. She didn’t pause on the unknown bodyguard; she was unaware. Spencer was seeing Nick’s subtle handiwork. “Familiar faces, but not anyone I really know. These are mostly the people that can be here at this time of the week.”

Spencer nodded and kept his thoughts to himself. Nick was good enough to provide his wife with a bodyguard during the times she would be most at risk because of her own patterns. Juliette was no idiot, but she didn’t know about the extra protection.

But Spencer’s mother, in an institution for good reason, spotted Nick’s interference within hours. Spencer had never considered his mother especially observant, and it was worse when she was medicated.

What didn’t Spencer know about Diana Reid? The news that Diana even knew the mechanics if not the application of wilderness tracking had been a complete surprise. Add it to the secrets and the ability to spot a bodyguard and Spencer was adrift.

Juliette wasn’t insulted that Spencer was lost in his own thought during the ride home. She just handed him his bags as the exited the car and carried the rest into the kitchen. Spencer waited until he was alone in his room to call his fastest source of information.

“Garcia, can you do me a favor?”

“You only need ask, my lovely.”

“I need the Portland PD case files on everything that has happened at this address.” He then rattled off where the Tea Shoppe could be found.

“Alright, found it. Do you want it sent to your tablet? Did you take your tablet with you?”

“I did and so I do.”

“Ha,” Garcia laughed. “You have to review a case without paper. Maybe this will change your ways.”

“Unlikely,” Reid drawled.

“Sent. Anything else?”

“Yes. I need you to go through Detective Burkhardt’s files and look for a case involving the, and I quote, ‘selling of horrible things,’ end quote. The Tea Shoppe would not be mentioned at all in the case file.”

“Looking. Excluding everything with mention of the Tea Shoppe and using key words of ‘sell’ or ‘sale’ or… Oh, Ew, ew, ew. Horrible things alright. And they were posing as do-gooders!”

“Garcia? What was being sold?”

“ _Human parts_. As in human hearts and livers and every other part of the human body, dried and _fresh_. People running the free clinic were cutting up street kids for profit. They weren’t sold for organ replacements but for new age-y supplement things. I’m as much for supplements as the next girl but Ew! Even some guys’ balls. Who would want dried balls? What would you do with it? Put it on your oatmeal?”

“Did you sent the files?” Spencer asked over her histrionics.

“Yes. Happily got it off my screen. I’m afraid to ask, but anything else?”

“Yes. I need to know how Marie Kessler died. Nick’s aunt.”

“I’m searching and almost closing my eyes just in case another surprise jumps out of my monitors. And… huh.”

“Garcia?”

“This woman was in stage four cancer. In the hospital, in and out of a coma and some –still unidentified man- in a priest’s frock tried to kill her. Kessler managed to stay alive long enough to impale the would-be assassin with his own scalpel and alert the hospital. He dragged her into the hall trying to escape her. She died from the exertion. That was the second assassination attempt since she had been admitted. Burkhardt saw a woman attempt to inject something into Kessler’s IV and realized something was wrong. In protecting his aunt, he was stabbed with a rare snake venom. He recovered quickly, though there’s no doubt that it would have killed Kessler. And before that… someone chased Kessler across three states and attacked her outside of Burkhardt’s house. Burkhardt shot that assailant dead. The police couldn’t find where Kessler crossed her first assailant and a quick check on my computers is showing nada. She had a very exciting last couple weeks of her life and she was a registered librarian. I had no idea librarians led such dangerous lives. Do you want me to dig deeper?”

“Someone wanted Kessler dead and was willing to keep sending assassins until someone got through. She must have had a huge secret,” Spencer mused.

“What kind of secret merits three different assassins?”

“The kind that people with a lot of money fear.” The kind that Diana Reid knew. The only thing that linked Diana and Marie Kessler was blood.

“Can you tell if Kessler ever visited my mother?”

Garcia’s keyboard clicked for a while as Spencer waited. “She never signed into the sanitarium but she attended a librarians’ conference in Vegas every January. If I had secrets and wanted to talk to your mother, I do it then.”

Spencer agreed, thanked Garcia for her work and ended the call. He still had more questions than answers.

*grimm*cm*

Spencer waited until Nick slowly eased himself onto the couch. He was so stiff that he wouldn’t be able to flee the conversation. Spencer also handed him some of the family tea, the first pot Spencer had ever brewed. It tasted just as good as the agent remembered. “When did you find out that Rosalee’s brother was trafficking in human parts?”

Nick’s wince was equal parts pain and Spencer’s realization, but he didn’t lie. “He was my lead to the… harvesters.”

Spencer could understand leaving the distributor alone while hunting the actual killers, but, “Why didn’t you arrest him after?”

“I had destroyed his source and,” here Nick flashed a wicked grin, “and his stock and promised to make regular visits. He wasn’t going to sell anymore.”

“But he was an accessary. Instead of destroying evidence, you could have taken police team there.”

“With what warrant?” Nick responded.

Spencer paused. A warrant needed probable cause. “How did you find out he was a distributor?”

“A CI… that has already been beaten within an inch of his life on my behalf.”

Spencer tried to balance the need to protect with the need to punish. “If someone was willing to buy from Rosalee’s brother, they would buy from someone else and some… entrepreneur will kill someone to fill the need, especially if you left the distribution change in place.”

“With Calvert in place, no one else would try to sell it and I was there regularly, and sent CI’s in to buy if possible. He was scared enough to not find another source and found a way to make the arrangement work for him as he would give me names of people who hadn’t paid up and Rosalee handed over those hidden books as so as I found Fredrick Calvert’s murderers. I’ve been keeping an eye on them and slowly but surely arresting them for other crimes. Crimes that I have a clear transfer of evidence that I can freely take to court. I’m getting them, Spencer. I’m not letting them roam free for long.”

“Juliette suggested I investigate Marie Kessler.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, just as an experienced profile under interrogate would. He offered no clues. “And?”

“She was dying and still three separate assassins attempted to end her life. I’m guessing that she didn’t take the secret to her grave. She told you whatever it was that was so dangerous. How many times have people tried to assassinate you?”

“I’m a homicide detective, Spencer. A lot of people want me dead.” Nick was blasé about the situation and that frightened Spencer a little. He had been the target so often that he wasn’t frightened. But Spencer saw the extra locks on the door and the multiple hiding places for weapons and even the supposedly ancient weapons on display. A socially acceptable way to ‘hide’ weapons. Spencer bet that that sword was sharp enough to cut flesh and perhaps bone and that crossbow was in working condition.

“How many bodyguards does Juliette have?”

“Not enough,” Nick was quick to admit. “But I’m always on a lookout for more.”

“I’ll be here for a long weekend. How many will figure that you told me the secret?”

This time, Nick grinned. “They’ll be able to look at you and know otherwise. You can’t help but to react differently to situations when you are aware. Even you can’t fake it. Especially the first couple. I’m sure that someone will bump into you to check, but otherwise, they don’t want to mess with a Fed. You’re safe, for now. Your mother ensured it.”

*grimm*cm*


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick gets at least one answer, but so does the Prince of Portland.

*grimm*cm*

“So what’s the agreement between the Royals and Diana Reed?”

Sean Renard looked up from his desk and glared at Portland’s residential Grimm. Because Sean’s subordinate and talented detective was not slouching in his visitor’s chair. No, that body posture, that insolent tone of voice and that damnable grin were outside of Sean’s authority. Sean missed the balance of power that had been (somewhat manipulative) orders from a captain that knew his detective was a Grimm. Now he had to fight for every concession from the Grimm that knew his captain was a Royal bastard. And Nick liked him on behalf of his mother. Sean couldn’t imagine the trouble a Grimm could cause if they choose.

“Sir,” and that was not a concession to Sean’s human rank but his Wesen one. “What is that hexenbiest doing to Aunt Diana?” Sean wasn’t surprised that Nick had accepted the older Grimm as family faster than himself.

“I’ve only had a week to investigate,” Sean told him.

The Grimm was not impressed. He waited, with one eyebrow raised. “You know,” he was sure.

He was correct. “I know, but what will you do for that information?”

“What do you need done?” Nick countered.

“I need you to slow your investigating of your current case.” Sean knew to start any bargaining high.

The Grimm just _looked_ at him, completely not impressed. “Ignoring the fact that the victims deserve closure and I don’t. want. to, I have no way of doing that without Hank calling me on it. Try again.”

“Ms. Schade is making a nuisance of herself.”

“You earned that,” but then Nick conceded. “I can distract her for a while.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“Speaking of annoying hexenbiest, what is Gheno doing to Aunt Diana?” 

“She’s separating the Grimm inheritance from the Reid family line, on behalf of a certain Royal line.”

Nick sobered. He didn’t react in a way that the experienced police captain could read. 

“You don’t mind?” Sean asked. He figured that the Grimm –the separate entity passed from parent to child- would react with instant anger.

“I understand a mother’s fear,” the younger man started slowly. “Especially a mother further destroyed by the heritage, but Spencer can handle the Grimm much better than Diana did. And part of me understands the desire to not force a child into any detrimental position that they can’t control… but I’ve done good work, handling things that no one else could have without more bodies scattered.”

Sean stiffened. “I handled the Wesen incidences before you became a detective and I…”

The Grimm cut him off with an eye roll. “The coins.”

Well, yes, Sean should have known better than to touch those. In retrospect, the decision had been … ill-advised. Sean had even been warned against it.

“You’ll keep me apprised of the experiments?”

Sean was stunned. “You want to know if it works?”

“I want to be able to give my own children a _choice_ and I want to be available if Diana dies before they finish their project. Someone has to explain the inheritance to Spencer and I don’t know if there _is_ anyone else.”

Sean nodded. “As soon as I hear anything, I’ll approve vacation.” He couldn’t think of anyone in the world he would prefer to introduce a new Grimm to the Wesen culture.

“Thank you sir, and Sir?”

Sean looked back at his detective and saw the Grimm shining through, so strong it overpowered the normal appearance of Nick Burkhardt. “The experiment might remove the Grimm from the Reids, but it won’t dissipate into thin air… It’ll find another family.”

Sean consider the warning and the source. “You’re sure?”

“I know.”

Sean nodded, and decided then and there to discourage any children of Nick from refusing the inheritance. Much better the Grimm one knew –and could work with, even grudgingly- than the one hiding in the shadows.

*grimm*cm*


	5. Chapter 5

*grimm*cm*

Spencer was looking through the unsub’s medicine cabinet, moving the bottles with gloved hands. He was very surprised not to find Viagra, or any other manufactured sexual performance drug. All of the profilers had agreed that the unsub had tried chemicals before moving to raping and killing his victims. How could they get this portion of the profile so wrong? What if they hadn’t?

Instead of regular over-the-counter medications, Spencer found a series of glass jars with German writing. Pure instinct had him reaching for his phone and calling his cousin. He had left his cousin’s house richer for family, but not in family secrets.

“Spencer?” Nick answered the phone. “I thought you were on a case?”

“I am. You remember your case we discussed?”

Spencer could hear only silence on Nick’s end of the phone. “Are you missing street kids?” he finally asked.

“I haven’t checked yet, but I’m investigating an unsub’s medicines. If I told you that the unsub was raping and killing victims and needed chemical assistance to become erect, what ‘natural remedies’ could you expect to find in the mix?”

Nick rattled off three of the six German labels Spencer had in front of him.

“What are they made from?”

“Gallbladder, thyroid and penis.” After a beat, Nick clarified, “Human. Supposedly, for those that would take them, they work better than anything in the drugstore.”

Spencer closed his eyes in mourning. No one would know the true end of the people who had become ground up ‘supplements.’

“Where are you, Spencer? You’re not going to be able to solve it without me.”

“New Orleans.”

“I’m getting the first flight out.”

“I’ll have a ticket waiting for you at the counter.”

“Thanks. Cuz, watch your back. The people that kill for profit, the ones that take those _medicines_ are not going to stop and there’s a large group of them. Be careful. Stick with your team.”

Spencer wanted to roll his eyes at the precautions. “I’ll have a car waiting when you arrive.”

“See you when I get there,” and then he hung up.

Spencer walked into living room where most of the BAU could see him and all could hear him called the home office. Garcia answered her phone almost immediately. “Alright genius boy, what do you need?”

“A plane ticket waiting for Detective Burkhardt at the Portland airport.”

The tech didn’t skip a beat. While most of the BAU hadn’t heard Burkhardt’s name since their case up there, Garcia was informed. “From your pocketbook or from the Bureau’s?”

“You know that case, when I apologized with a caramel apple?” Spencer hedged.

“Ew, yes.”

“I’m going to need you to send that to the team.”

“EW! The Bureau’s. Bye.”

Hotch’s eyebrow was not the only one raised, but he was the boss, so Spencer addressed him. He put the three identified bottles on the table. “This is from a human gallbladder, this one is from the thyroid and this one is from a penis. In certain circles, they’re considered more effective at achieving an erection than those advertised on TV.”

“And Burkhardt?”

“He knew which samples would match which body parts, off the top of his head. He shut down those acquiring and distributing to most of the West Coast. They were kidnapping semi-healthy street kids and… harvesting their parts. That was last year. To protect his CI’s, he still hasn’t put everything into the case files. These,” Spencer indicated the glass jars, “are fresher than last year.”

Hotch paused for a moment, coming to grips with the changing worldview. “Get everything suspicious tested for human DNA. We’ll put a rush on it.” He accepted the jars solemnly. “You’re sure, aren’t you?”

Spencer nodded. “In this case, I’d be thrilled to be wrong. There’re three more jars in the cabinet. I didn’t tell Burkhardt what I found, I just asked for the, ah, equivalent to sexual enhancement drugs. He named these.”

Morgan looked at JJ. “We’ll need his financials. We need to know if his supplier is local or across state lines.” The pair returned to the study to search.

Rossi looked at Hotch. “Are we going to have to bargain with this scumbag, let him have a shorter sentence in exchange for his supplier?”

Hotch grimaced. “Not if we can find his supplier first.”

“Well, I’m interested to see Burkhardt interrogate someone outside the reach of his reputation.”

“So am I.”

*grimm*cm*


	6. Chapter 6

*grimm*cm*

Spencer had re-read the case file at his normal speed and was long since done. While waiting of the rest of the BAU to catch up, he had sequestered himself in a room with only Garcia on the phone. The two tried to search through a number of parameters trying to find their new unsubs. They were at it for a couple of hours. JJ had checked on him twice and Hotch once. They had squat to show for their time when Garcia announced that Nick’s plane was touching down in thirty minutes.

He wandered into the conference room. “I’ll go pick up Nick,” Spencer volunteered. 

Rossi looked up from the case files. “Try to get him to fill in the blanks, even if it’ll reveal his CI’s. We’re miles away from Portland. No harm should splash back on them. He’s withholding vital information.”

Spencer nodded and hoped he didn’t offer any tells that he knew at least one of the unnamed CI. He was standing in a room full of profilers after all. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Hotch nodded. He frowned at his written list of questions for Nick. For the first time, not certain if he wanted someone who left such glaring omissions on his paperwork a part of the BAU.

Morgan twisted to stretch his back, and while facing Spencer asked, “So Reid, why did Baby Girl ask if you were paying for the ticket?”

“I’ve spent some time with Burkhardt since our case. He has an interesting perspective on many things.” He was not going to tell them the family connection. He would keep it private for now. Privacy was a rare commodity among such talented people.

“Are you part of Hotch’s plan to get Burkhardt onto the BAU?”

“Burkhardt doesn’t want anything to do with the BAU.”

“It’s too much of a challenge?”

Reid sniffed. “He has more experience with our current case than we do. I think he’s challenged enough in Portland.” He jingled the keys to the borrowed SUV. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Nick was waiting at the entrance of the airport, bags in hand. He waved cheerfully to Reid and ignored an abnormal number of stares, some astonished, some frightened and some furious. Reid check that nothing was amiss in his cousin’s appearance, he wasn’t trailing toilet paper he wasn’t wearing inappropriate attire. There was no reason for the stares. The journey from the airport to the police station was filled with fun gossip about Juliette, Diana and Nick’s police partner. Nick was busy working on some paper at the same time and Spencer had to concentrate on driving periodically. Spencer did tell Nick that he hadn’t shared their familiar relationship with most of the team; only Garcia knew. Nick agreed with the limiting the distribution of facts. It wasn’t anyone’s business but theirs.

Several cops stopped and glared when Spencer entered the precinct with Nick. Once again, Nick ignored the hostile attention. He stopped at a copier to reproduce the handwritten sheet of paper that he had finished during the drive. He nodded his greetings to the BAU team members, as he knew them all and passed out his work. “Here’s a translation of… _medicines_ you might encounter during the case. First column is the Spanish name, the second is the German name and the third is the main human ingredient. The fourth is its usage.”

To Reid’s practiced eye, it was clear that Nick had started off with the Spanish list (categorized by certain to kill the subject, ie heart or lungs, to items that could be harvested without killing the subject, like hair and nails.) Then Nick had found the German translation. There were a couple instances where Nick didn’t have one or the other of the foreign languages. In the usage column, the treatments were both varied and contradictory. With the utter unscientific idea that the human body could cure another by ingesting it, Spencer was no surprise that the ‘cured diseases’ varied.

“Do you know the street prices of theses?” Emily asked. “We need an idea of how much money transfer we’re looking for and it can’t be cheap considering the risks involved.”

“I’d have to call a friend for the market value,” Nick admitted. “But this is not something you buy on the street. It’s definitely a storefront operation.”

Rossi moved the conference room speakerphone towards the consultant. “Now would be a good time to call.”

“No,” Nick refused. “I have to protect them.”

“We are thousands of miles away from your CI’s. The distance will protect them,” Rossi argued.

Nick snorted. “I’ll make you a deal. If your rapist unsub doesn’t react as if he obviously has heard of me, I’ll call in public. If news of me hasn’t traveled this far, than the identity of my CI’s won’t be exposed back home.”

It was a logical argument. Hotch and Rossi looked at each other. “We’ll take you to interrogation.”

“Can I have the sample bottles as prop?” 

“Sure.”

*grimm*cm*

“Mr. Tully? I’m Detective Nick Burkhardt. From Portland.”

Bradley Tully jerked back so fast, he moved the heavy interrogation table he was chained to an inch. “What are you doing _here_?”

Burkhardt set the three glass stopper jars on the table. “I was called in to consult.”

Tully looked from the jars to Burkhardt and back again. “I am _not_ talking to you without my… lawyer. You can’t touch me in here.”

“So people keep telling me.” Nick effectively used cheerfulness as a warning menace.

“Leave. Leave now. HEY!” he yelled. “You behind the mirror! I don’t want him here.”

“As long as I’m following the SOP, you can’t get rid of me,” Nick said. “You have no power. You could, of course, bargain to confess to a member of the BAU.”

“I’ll do it,” Tully declared. “Get out!”

Hotch looked at Rossi. “We’re not outside the reach of his reputation, yet.”

“So I see. How does a cop without a single accusation of excessive force do that? You want to get Tully’s confession or do you want me to?”

“You do it. I’m going to talk to Burkhardt.”

“Good luck.”

Hotch grinned. Neither believed in luck. “You too.”

Burkhardt didn’t look _too_ triumphant when he passed Rossi at the interview room door. He waved his phone at Hotch. “I’ll get those prices you wanted now.”

*grimm*cm*

“Tully confessed to his crimes but claimed to know nothing of the true contents of his medicine cabinet,” Rossi reported.

Burkhardt and Morgan snorted in disbelief.

“Obviously a lie,” Rossi agreed. “He really doesn’t want to see you, detective. He made it a part of his plea bargain that you’re not allowed to be in the same room as him. He wanted to file a restraining order against you too.”

Burkhardt laughed.

Rossi did as well. “He won’t get one, but he tried. Why is he so scared of you?”

“I don’t know.” The hurt mystification on Burkhardt’s face was real. “I’ve never meet him before and I’m pretty sure I’ve never arrested a family member. I’ve never understood it.” He wandered over to the teapot, viewing the police bullpen.

Rossi let him go. Hotch had done the same. Burkhardt wasn’t the obvious victim of bullying, but they had seen the reactions. If Burkhardt had dark skin, they would have called it racism. The hate and fear Tully carried for Burkhardt was that visceral.

“Can we use the federal building? We are in New Orleans, we can assume that the abductions are happening on both sides of the state line.” Burkhardt was leaning against the window, staring out at the busy, crowded bullpen.

Morgan huffed. “I would’ve thought you’d be more comfortable in a police department.”

“I can spot at least four people out there right now who take similar… medicines as Tully. And it wouldn’t surprise me if an additional three or four also use.”

The entire BAU team stilled. As much as they wished, they wouldn’t rush the window to gawk like a bunch of rookies. Hotch stood up and walked over to the consultant. 

Burkhardt turned to face him and recited, “Over my right shoulder, in the middle of the desks, two officers have arrested three gang members. The gang looks somewhat related, but they are also related to the cop pushing them into the chairs. All four are users. Don’t know if his partner is in on it or not. Two desks further back, a dark-haired female cop is watching the drama. She knows why they’re here. Possible user. More possible users over my left shoulder, starting from the back corner, using the copier, the secretary, both of the patrol officers getting coffee, the four detectives with desks near the water fountain and last, but not least, the assistant chief of police.”

Rossi cursed quietly. They were smack in the middle of the snake nest and they hadn’t known. The team was surprised that the samples had even returned as human. If the assistant police chief was in on it, why not switch the samples out with something more benign. 

Hotch watched all of the people Burkhardt had spied. “The assistant chief is a very likely suspect.”

“Very likely,” Burkhardt confirmed.

“I’d say so,” Morgan agreed. “I was flirting with the forensic techs while they were working on the samples and he visited lab for the first time since he became chief.” In doing so, Morgan had prevented the chief from pulling a switcheroo.

“The gang members were brought in to kill Tully?” Reid asked. “Tully hasn’t talked to us yet, about the ground up body parts, but he might. If they kill our only lead at this point, they could usher us out of town. We don’t have any evidence that the murders are happening here.”

“True,” but Burkhardt shrugged. “Did anyone know I was coming?”

“The chief knew a consultant was flying in,” Hotch informed him. “I didn’t give him a name or origin.”

Reid wrung his hands nervously. He didn’t want his friend getting killed on his watch. “Maybe we should get you a bodyguard?”

Burkhardt grinned dangerously. “I can handle myself. Most of the time, I can see them coming.”

“You’ll be partnered but Morgan for most of the case,” Hotch ordered. “No going off alone, not even to talk to CI’s.” He remembered several instances of Burkhardt investigating a clue solo during the Portland case.

“We’re half a continent away from his town,” Rossi pointed out. He was still a little peeved that he had lost the right to question Burkardt’s CI’s. “How many CI’s could he have gathered between the airport and here?”

Burkhardt shrugged. “I asked a couple of CI’s call ahead. People are waiting to contact me, but those people are not the same ones that would talk to that kind.” He jerked a thumb at the arrested gangbangers.

“Let’s take a break people,” Hotch ordered. “Go somewhere else for lunch. Think things over and come back with some ideas. Go with a partner.”

“I’m calling Will,” JJ announced. “See if he remembers any rumors from this precinct. It wasn’t his, but he might know something. Someone bring me back a lunch.”

Morgan turned to Burkhardt. “How do you feel about Italian?”

“Good enough for me.”

“I’m coming with you,” Reid told them. “I have to use the men’s room first.”

Morgan stood and stretched. “You’re not the only one. We’ve had hours drinking coffee trying to narrow down the suspect list.”

Burkhardt remained seated and checked his phone as he waited for his lunch partners. He smiled sadly.

The experienced FBI agent could guess the reason. “How’s your fiancée taking this trip?” Rossi asked.

Burkhardt shrugged. “She’s not thrilled, but she understands. She actually helped me out last time I had the similar case and got the kids to accept a free dinner. She asked the girl just the right question for me to pursue leads.”

“So if this was a regular occurrence?” hinted Rossi. He wasn’t one to hold a grudge about withholding evidence if it didn’t prevent a conviction.

“I’m not interested in working for the FBI,” Burkhardt declared. 

“How about consulting for the BAU.”

“I am incredibly busy and I love my job.”

“Think about it,” Rossi pressed. Hotch was correct, Burkhardt would make a terrific BAU agent with a little polish. If his reputation had spread the entire breadth of the country and he could get unsubs to confess by merely walking into the interrogation room? That was a talent worth having.

*grimm*cm*


	7. Chapter 7

*grimm*cm*

“What do the unsubs need?” Reid asked, poised at the board. He and Garcia’s previous lists had rendered no leads, so they were trying again with the whole group. 

Burkhardt swung his chair thoughtfully. “Humans that people are not going to miss, some way of sort through the available bodies since they are only interested in the relatively healthy. Some pretty decent medical equipment for harvesting the parts. Some place to harvest that people won’t go snooping and some way to distribute the… uh medicines. We caught the case last time because the guy delivering a fresh heart got into a car accident.”

Morgan asked, “How many people should be missing?”

“I would expect at least one a day. Minimum.”

“They have the entire city to hunt in, all sides of the delta to hide, but we’re not seeing those kinds of numbers in Louisiana or Alabama,” Garcia chimed in from the East Coast. “Most visitors to the fair city leave too.”

“Maybe they’re elsewhere in the United States and shipping to here?” suggested Emily. “This is a major shipping hub.”

“No. The fact that the assistant chief was trying to stop the investigation before it started means that they’re here. They are here someplace,” Burkhardt was dead certain. “In Portland, when we found their harvest center, we found the pit where they burnt the parts of the body they didn’t sell. We found one hundred and twenty-three different sets of teeth in it. They had killed one hundred and twenty people before we caught on, but they were people that no one reported missing, all runaways and homeless. Just because we can’t find the missing doesn’t mean anything.”

“We can’t look for bodies either,” Morgan complained. “Between the sharks in the bay and the gators in the bayou, there are number of ways to get rid of human bodies.”

“Do you think anyone would tell us where the predators are gathering that doesn’t makes sense?” Reid wondered.

“We can ask,” JJ said. “No one would raise an eyebrow if we asked Fishing and Wildlife those kind of questions. We might get honest answers.” Will had supplied the news that the precinct they were currently residing in had a reputation for sketchy results.

“It’s a longshot,” Hotch agreed, “But go ask. We are starting from scratch, here. So we have two approaches the case: first, we have Tully’s finances which we hope will lead us to the distribution chain. Second, we have the missing people, who are they and where are they being abducted? Rossi, you have JJ and Garcia, of course, and you find where and when he bought the product. You’ll be going through his trash and receipts and interviewing Tully as many times as he’ll let you. Reid, Prentiss, Morgan, Burkhardt and I are going to try to find the unsubs through their victims. We can’t assume the conference room is secure. We will try to keep someone on site in the interim. Try not to leave clues lying about. For now, I’ll stay and try to keep up on our DC work.”

“We’re not moving to the federal building?” Burkhardt confirmed.

“We move and the case is handed over to the local FBI, and we all know how easy it would be to make all the evidence disappear if we’re not here.”

Considering they had one consumer and five bottles of ground up human organs (one of Tully’s stash had been purely plants), the evidence was already slim.

“Morgues? Funeral Homes?” Morgan suggested. That would reduce the charge from murder –which was Burkhardt’s opinion- to misappropriation of human remains.

Burkhardt shook his head. “No one already dead. The one body that we connected to the case had managed to get out of his restraints after being drained of blood. In his attempt to escape he drowned in the nearby river and washed up within the Portland city limits. The victims are alive when they start the final surgery.”

“How about someone expected to die?” Emily threw out. “If someone was going to get a closed casket, they family could be burying an empty box.”

Burkhardt refused that suggestion too. “No. Last time they targeted the healthiest of the street kids, using the bait of a job offer to pick them up. The doctor at the free clinic was giving them names to target… as well as performing the killing surgeries.”

“Do they use anesthesia?” Ried asked worriedly. “We could track the drugs.”

Burkhardt’s mourning was obvious. “Not always and only to keep the body still before the actual surgery. From what I understand, common practice is to drain the body of enough blood to severally weaken but not kill. So the person is still alive –not drugged- and begin surgery then.”

“How many unsubs are we talking about?” Rossi asked. “The more people, the more likely the secret will slip out.”

Burkhardt pointed at Reid’s stack of Portland case files. “You saw how many were killed and arrested during the takedown. In addition to that, you have the driver that was transporting parts to the distributer, another single person. They are all motivated by money, but it’s more than that.”

“Oh?” Reid asked.

“Last time, they were all but the distributor were related. Cousins mostly. Some people that married into the family.”

“Extra ties,” Morgan mused.

“I know it’s presumptuous,” Burkhardt mused, “but do any of the unsubs from the Portland case have relatives living in New Orleans?” 

“Garcia?” Hotch prompted.

“Looking, looking. Huh. Double huh. We have thirteen, a very unlucky number, of relatives, blood and otherwise of unsubs in Burkhardt’s case that claim New Orleans as their home. None of them have a current address listed and all of them have P.O. Boxes. Ten of them have Louisiana driver’s licenses. None of them are employed or claim unemployment.”

“You can do better than that, Baby Doll ,” Morgan teased.

“Sweet Cheeks, I can’t even confirm that they exist, let alone where they are.”

“What about the distributor,” Rossi asked. “I don’t see any notes on that conspirator.”

“Dead,” Burkhardt answered. “And the family is not involved in New Orleans.”

“How can you know,” Rossi pressed.

Burkhardt didn’t flinch. “I know.”

“You’re withholding vital information in case.”

“The Portland case is closed and we have no concrete evidence that anything I know from there pertains to this.”

“You’re withholding vital information in case,” Rossi ground out.

“I’m protecting my people.”

Rossi was so frustrated he was shaking. “We need to know. We won’t spread the information beyond this room.”

“Rossi,” Reid snapped. All members of the team were surprised with the genius’s interference. “You don’t need to know anything more than the Portland distributor is dead and the family is not involved in New Orleans. Remember your first case with the team?”

Hotch broke the tense silence. “Burkhardt, what clues can lead Garcia to the distributor in New Orleans?”

Burkhardt thought carefully. “The storefront has got to be a small business. You can’t have too many people in on the payroll. Family run, maybe, but with a high profit margin. The kind that would normally signify time to pay someone not family to run the cash register. The legal part of the business would be like a garden center that specializes in herbs, a tea shop or a pharmacy. Not some place where people sit down and chat. Maybe a microbrewery?”

“Okay,” Garcia mused. “Looking through small businesses less than five employees where glass jars filled with unidentifiable stuff would fit in. Hmm, I found two candy shops, two microbreweries, a vineyard, ten garden centers, three pharmacies, one tea shop and a partridge in a pear tree.”

“E-mail the list.”

“It’s already on your phones.”

“Reid, Prentiss, you get the first half of the list. Morgan, Burkhardt, the second. Make contacts around town with prostitutes and hookers. See if anyone had gone missing. We need to find the victim pool.”

“I’m driving,” Morgan called out. Burkhardt shrugged his acceptance.

On their way out, Morgan and Burkhardt passed a striking woman in an expensive suit. Morgan checked out the whole, curvy package. Burkhardt and the woman had a two second stare down. “Detective Burkhardt,” he introduced himself.

“Deborah Grogan.” She handed Burkhardt a business card before walking away.

“Know her?” Morgan asked.

“Her type,” Burkhardt answered, flashing the card. “I hate lawyers.”

“You think that’s Tully’s?”

“Sure of it.”

“She’s looks out of his budget.”

Burkhardt twisted to watch her ‘introduce’ herself to the assistant chief of police. “But not his.”

Morgan agreed silently. The pair drove around town, visiting the possible distribution centers and homeless. Burkhardt would focus on the people outside as Morgan focused on the people in. They found that three of the garden centers also sold marijuana and two of the pharmacies sold prescription drugs without a prescription, but nothing related to the case.

From the homeless, they got three names. Garcia ran them and found two in the morgue from natural causes. The last one was MIA but they should be looking at many more people missing. Morgan was getting frustrated and was starting to believe that the actual harvesting was happening elsewhere.

Burkhardt was still sure and determined and looking past the homeless and junkie for answers. Burkhardt spotted someone and grinned when he saw that someone staring at him in horror. “Perfect,” he muttered and took off after the man when he dropped his donut and ran. Morgan had to work to keep up. Burkhardt was fast. He managed to loop around the zig-zagging runner and trap him between the detective and the agent. The runner tried to dodge, but Burkhardt was excellent at being in the way.

Finally the runner stopped and put up his hands. “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” he begged.

Burkhardt seemed resigned and insulted all at once. He was barely out of breath. “Of course, I’m not going to kill you. I’m a cop, Detective Burkhardt from Portland, and Morgan over there is an FBI agent. He won’t let me kill anyone. I’m just looking for information. I’m looking for a witch.”

“A witch?” He twitched, looking for an escape route.

“I don’t want you. You’re busy as a bee to get ahead. I want someone looking for shortcuts; I want a witch. Someone who would use ground up human parts if they thought it would help. Someone who wouldn’t like the FBI snooping in their spice cabinet because there’s something in there that would get them arrested.”

“Oh. Oooooohhhh.” The man looked gleeful at the mental picture. Still worried about himself, but liking the idea of sic-ing Burkhardt on someone else.

“I just need someplace where I can find a witch or two. Your name never comes up. In fact, this conversation never happened.”

The man twitched again. He really wanted to, but he wasn’t sure.

“What about Grogan, Grogan and Hines,” Burkhardt mentioned the law company that sent Tully an attorney. It made sense that the case circled back to Tully.

The man snorted, “Grogan, Grogan and Hines is lousy with witches.”

“Exactly what I wanted to hear,” Burkhardt grinned. He handed the man his business card. “If you come up with anything call me,” Burkhardt asked. He looked past Morgan and handed the man a stack of business cards. “Give these to your friends, and tell them the same. If they know anyone who would use human remains for shortcuts or know who they’re killing or where they’re killing or anything about the distribution of the product. Give me a call, send me a text and don’t do anything dangerous. That’s my job.”

“Sure, sure. For sure.” The man dodged around Morgan and hurried to his waiting friends, where he passed out Burkhardt’s cards. The group hurried away. Morgan and Burkhardt let them ‘escape.’

“How on earth did you know that he’d like to get a witch in trouble?” Morgan had to ask.

Burkhardt looked a little blank. “I don’t know, I just did. He ran from me so I knew that he knew why I was in town. I knew he had information I wanted.”

“Are you sure that we’re looking for a witch?”

“Yes. The use of human remains in a… potion came up in a separate case concerning someone who believed they were a witch. The Unsub then had been a lawyer.”

“You didn’t mention that in the conference,” Morgan stated.

“I’ve read Rossi’s books. He doesn’t believe in practicing black magic as a motive. I didn’t want to get into an argument that would waste time we could be searching on the streets.”

“The stats are against black magic as a reason to kill,” Morgan had to point.

Burkhardt laughed. “And where are the stats on people killing to grind up and sell.”

“Point. Next time tell me. I’ll listen with an open mind. I’m assuming Reid knows this just like he’s met the family of the former distributor?”

Burkhardt had to think about it. “No, I don’t think witches came up in our discussions. We had other priorities.”

“Well, text him and tell him so that he knows what he needs to keep an eye out for. Now what?”

“We sit outside of Grogan, Grogan and Hines and wait for someone who can be leveraged to talk to us.”

“Oh, I can do better than that,” Morgan said as he pulled out his phone and dialed his favorite girl. Garcia answered on the second ring. “Baby Girl, we are looking for someone.”

“Is it me?”

“No one so vivacious, baby. A stuffy lawyer from Grogan, Grogan and Hines.”

“Oh, sounds suspicious. Tell me more.”

“A woman raised by a single mother,” Nick replied. “And has been at the law firm for less than five years.” At Morgan’s questioning look, he explained. “We want someone we can shake. She takes big risks, Garcia, and has been promoted and demoted already. One of those demotions happened when she almost lost a case, but someone on the opposing council’s side died or got horribly sick.”

“Creepy,” the computer tech muttered.

“Yes, she is. She would have used some of the human remains to poison her target.”

“Oh! Ew!”

Burkhardt looked amused at the squealing. “Any luck?”

“Interestingly enough half of the lawyers there are women raised by single moms. Go girl power. And yes, we have a winner. Eliza Grogan is the granddaughter of the first Grogan of Grogan, Grogan and Hines and the niece of the second. She’s been at the firm for four years. Been advanced twice and demoted once and for a case where the opposing council had a really convenient heart attack at the age of forty-two. Rare, but no unheard of. He’s still recovering.”

“That’s who we’re looking for. Can you tell us if she’s in the law offices?”

“Yes I can and Yes she is.”

Morgan looked at Burkhardt and knew, “We do not want to face her in her workplace.”

“Very true.”

“Baby Girl, do you know what time she normally leaves for the day?”

“You didn’t ask that and I didn’t answer seven o’clock.”

“Understood. Chat with you later.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said before hanging up.

“Dinner?” Morgan asked.

Burkhardt grinned. “I smelled some really good Cajun spices coming out of a restaurant as I was chasing him.”

“I like that plan.” 

*grimm*cm*

After confirming that Morgan wouldn’t be insulted if Burkardt spent all of dinner on the phone, he did. He was involved in three texting conversations and called his fiancée in the middle. The food tasted as good as it smelled and Morgan had a ball flirting with the waitress. At the appointed time, they excused themselves from their conversations and drove over to the law offices.

They only had to wait ten minutes before Eliza Grogan sauntered out the door. Burkhardt grinned at Morgan. “Look at those heels, she’ll never outrun us.”

Morgan laughed and watched as Burkhardt herded the woman into an isolated alcove. Like most of the other encounters of the day, Burkhardt introduced himself as a detective from Portland. Grogan looked like she wanted to run.

Burkhardt didn’t waste any time. “So I know about Eric Brand. I want to know where you got the ingredients to cause the heart attack.”

“I don’t care what you want,” Grogan snarled. She had a beautiful Cajun accent. Slow and easy, even as she sputtered with hate and vitriol.

Burkhardt pointed at finger at her, so close she could have bit it. “I can make your entire life disappear. Poof. Gone.”

Grogan stared at that finger as if it was poison. “You are a cautionary tale… Burkhardt.”

“I know. I plan on remaining one. Where did you get the ingredients? You tell me and I walk away.” 

“You. Will walk away.”

“I’m not a federal agent. It’s not my jurisdiction.”

“I don’t know anything about poison.”

“Your face and I’m sure your spice cabinet will tell me differently. If I make a fuss, even if I don’t get my answers which will make me make more of a fuss, what will Mom think? What will all those other women at work think?”

Grogan thought about it and then dug around in her purse for a pen and a paper. She scribbled something on it. “I’ve never used this, of course, but I’ve heard things from clients. I don’t want to see you again.”

Burkhardt took the paper right from her fingers. “Then don’t do anything that will get my attention.”

Grogan sauntered away, the strut much less sure than before.

“What did you get?” Morgan asked.

“A website. Garcia should be able to get through the security and blocks.”

“I’d bet on my baby girl any day of the week. What about Grogan? You’re really not going to follow up on it? She gave a man a heart attack.”

Burkhardt grinned. “Not my jurisdiction. But I might have asked Garcia to send Eric Brand a hint. He’s a good lawyer and he probably can figure out where the poison was hidden. He’ll go after her and be wary enough that she won’t be able to do it a second time.”

“You don’t think she’s going to go home and dump all human remains down the toilet?”

“Naw. She’s a skinflint and is barely making ends meet at it is. You saw her shoes. She can’t afford to waste anything. She’ll go home and hide them in the best spot in the house.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

“No, I’m good at searching, if I need to find it. What worries me is that she’ll be using the French name of everything and I’ll miss it. None of my CI’s back home speak French. I need to get someone here who will talk to me.”

“What about the guy you chased down? You didn’t take his number though.” That was a grievous oversight, even though the guy hadn’t even offered his own name.

“I don’t think he’d know it all. He’s not the type. Rather like how a normal citizen wouldn’t know all of the nicknames for marijuana. When he calls, I’ll ask though.”

“You really think he’ll call?”

“For the gossip alone.”

“Come on,” Morgan said. “Let’s get back to the office and see if anyone had better luck than us.” They both knew that they would have received a phone call if there had been a good lead. No news was bad news.

The rest of the team was waiting for the men to arrive. No one looked hopeful. Morgan spoke first and relayed the events of the day. Garcia promised to get right on the website. Reid and Prentiss had similar results as Morgan and Burkhart; some drug trafficking but nothing related to the case and no one was truly missing.

Rossi reported, “Tully’s new lawyer is refusing all contact. She won’t even bargain for a lighter sentence. We have one receipt of the dried gallbladder. We now know that he paid three hundred for it, but it’s handwritten, so he didn’t use a credit card, and it was in the trash. Trace evidence is not going to help.”

“He overpaid,” Burkhardt muttered.

“How did he go from a website to a handwritten receipt,” Reid asked. “We’re missing something.”

JJ had gotten a better response. “So I have four isolated areas of higher than normal shark and croc activity.”

“Are any of them near an isolated road?”

“Three of them are,” JJ reported.

“Put them on the map with the suspected Post Office pinned,” Hotch told Reid. “See if we can spot anything.”

Burkhardt examined Reid’s color coded map for two minutes, before digging out his phone. “If you’ll excuse, I need to go call Juliette.”

Hotch barely waited until the detective was out the door before asking, “How was it with Burkhardt?”

“His people skills are incredible. He went from chasing a guy to getting information from him in less than fifteen minutes and that includes the mile sprint. The lawyer, he managed to threaten to get the website from in less than five. He left it very open to get information from both, plus five of the guy’s friends. He collects CI’s as fast as I collect phone numbers. I think half the reason he doesn’t report his CI’s is because the paperwork would take too long. He didn’t initially understand the advantages of using Garcia, but he caught on fast.”

“Why are they talking to him?” Hotch’s mystification was shared by the entire team.

Morgan had a theory. “It’s as if the entire city thinks that Burkhradt is effective because he’s a crooked cop, but once he convinces the honest ones otherwise –it doesn’t take a lot of convincing because he really isn’t, they fall over themselves to help out because he is efficient. Those that hate him on sight still believe that he’s crooked and that he can punish them with the weight of the law.”

“But why him?”

“They don’t know his face, but they know his reputation.”

“We should find out what case got him known,” Rossi suggested. He turned to Reid. “Do you think he’ll tell us about his CI’s after knows us and trusts us?”

Reid shrugged. “Maybe, but he really is not interested in joining the BAU.”

*grimm*cm*


	8. Chapter 8

*grimm*cm*

The next morning started early, with Tully getting shanked in jail by the three that Burkhardt had pointed out. The police warden immediately called Hotch, as the agent had requested and the agent called Morgan and Burkhardt to sit on the residence. The three killers shared the same ramshackle house. They waited outside to prevent contaminating the scene as Hotch fast-tracked a warrant for their house.

A clean BMW pulled up to the front of the house.

“Someone’s slumming,” Morgan muttered.

Burkhardt smirked. “Or trying to take advantage. Ms. Grogan,” he called to the woman who stilled exiting her car. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We’re about to search the residence of a couple of prison killers. What are you doing here?”

“I’m on the defense team. I’m here to collect some paperwork for my clients.”

“Really? You have a key?”

She paused just long enough for Morgan to catch the panic, but as a dedicated actress, she searched through her purse with a frown on her face. “That’s odd. I’m sure I put it in here.”

“I’m sure you did,” Burkhardt consoled, “But without it and a writ concerning your legal privilege to be on the premises, I’m afraid we can’t let you pass.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Best hurry if you want to make it before the search warrant.”

“No local judge will issue a search warrant at four in the morning.”

Morgan was tired of being ignored. “But a federal one will.”

Grogan paled.

“So we’ll save you some coffee?” Burkhardt offered. His smarm was enough to get the woman huffing.

“I believe so. Until then, detective, agent,” and then she hurried away.

“Here to dispose of the evidence?” Morgan guessed.

“Yeah, at first I thought she was just here for herself, but I think she might have been here for the law firm.”

Morgan shook his head in confusion. “Why did she wait until this morning? The three gang members have been in the prison for a day and a half.”

“She didn’t think we’d move this fast. That’s why she reacted. She’s not afraid of us, we don’t have anything on her, but whoever gave her the order will not be pleased if we find evidence of the human trafficking.”

“She’ll be back if she can get her writ.”

“Yes, but I’m not expecting to see her before Hotch gets his search warrants.”

Morgan grinned. “Yeah. I bet on Hotch too.”

Hotch did arrive with the rest of the BAU and the search warrants before Grogan returned. They found a veritable smorgasbord of German and French labeled jars inside the house. Some were in the medicine cabinet and some –the blood in jars- was in the refrigerator. The police lab techs worked overtime to confirm twenty four different humans reduced to flakes and pints of blood. Morgan had no problem spending time in the lab to ensure the integrity of the chain of evidence. Burkhardt didn’t mind being down there either as he was painstakingly matching the French labels to the Spanish and German on his cheat sheet.

The techs couldn’t offer any sort of time of death, but knew it had to be within the last six months, the blood had been gathered even more recently. The additional evidence infused new life into the case and Hotch’s bosses gave the BAU free rein to shut down the human trafficking ring.

*grimm*cm*

Sean frowned at his phone. It wasn’t like Nick to text him, but there it was. A text asking if Sean was willing to offer the French translation to a paper involved in the federal case. Nick was asking for Wesen information. Nick was asking for the French Wesen name for the bit of human remains that he had found. It made perfect sense in Nick’s location.

Part of Sean was pleased that Nick was asking him for information. Part of him didn’t want the information added to the Grimm histories. Of course he had told Nick yes. He wanted to know exactly how much Nick knew about the practice of human harvesting. The custom needed to die out, Sean knew. It offered no true advantages and brought down the ire of the humans when caught.

When the e-mail arrived, Sean was stunned by the completeness of the data. He knew the French translation for all of the German, but not all of the Spanish. He would have to do some research to catch up. He decided that he would give Nick the French, and the Latin translations as a bonus. He wanted Nick to trust his words and the Grimm already had all of the information anyway. He wouldn’t add to it. (He wasn’t sure if he could add to it.) 

Where had the Grimm picked up the Spanish?

*grimm*cm*

Rosalee was less surprised at the text from Nick. He was running into dead-ends looking for the Wesen distributors. She knew only a little of Wesen in New Orleans, but she had heard things. In the end, she pointed the Grimm toward chiropractors, masseuses and acupuncturists. She trusted Nick not to kill the good Wesen in confusion with the bad.

*grimm*cm*

Garcia generated a new list of possible distributors based on Burkhardt’s tip. This list was considerably longer than the first. The BAU split into pairs looking for suspects and persons of interest. Burkhardt and Morgan were paired again. They took turns questioning the owners and professionals. Everything seemed normal until they stopped at a certain chiropractor’s office. 

“This looks promising,” Burkhardt murmured.

Morgan tried to see whatever had the detective’s attention. “Really?”

“Yes. You go first,” Burkhardt told Morgan, nodding at the office building surround by plants. “Ask for the catch of the day.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“If this is the right place, it’ll work. After they give you an affirmative, ask for something high on the list. One of the French ones we know.”

“Why not you?”

“They might recognize me and then we won’t get anywhere.”

“How will they recognize you?”

“You know, none of them have told me that, yet. They just do. Something in the eyes or the face. So will you go?”

Morgan put his hand on the door handle, but gave the detective a warning look. He wasn’t done questioning, he was simply postponing. The woman at the front desk had a round pretty face and straight, long brown hair. She was in her late forties. She certainly didn’t look like she was a distributor of human remains, but the agent was trusting Burkhardt’s expertise. She was filling in a schedule on the computer. She didn’t even look up when he walked in the door.

“I’m here for the catch of the day.”

She sighed, annoyed. “You are in the wrong chiropractic office for that shit.”

“Where is the right one?”

She finally stopped typing and stared at Morgan. She tilted her head slowly, paused and examined him. “Why the hell are you looking for it?”

Morgan smiled, flirtatiously. “If you answer, you never have to see me again… if you want.”

The woman looked down her nose at him. She was obviously not going to take crap from anyone. “Why are you looking for it?”

Morgan pulled out his FBI badge. “We want to stop the manufacture and distribution.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. Do you know who sells it, or even better who and where the slaughter house is?”

She sighed, mournful. “No, but I’m glad someone is trying to shut them down.”

Morgan leaned over the counter. The woman knew something, he just had to pry it out of her. He saw a line of glass jars by the computer mouse. He grabbed the nearest one. It was labeled in German, but he didn’t recognize the word. He wished that he had been paired with Reid; the genius would know if it was on Burkhardt’s list and was able to walk into places that spotted Burkhardt. Morgan was just guessing. “You don’t know. This looks very similar to the samples we’ve already found.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “You can have a little bit of that for testing. You’re not going to find anything incriminating here.”

“Can you say that for your entire building? I can get a warrant.”

“And become the laughing stock of the city?” She stared him down.

“Are you _weirder_?”

Burkhardt made both Morgan and the secretary? chiropractor? jump. How the hell had Burkhardt managed to sneak up on them? The detective came around from the back with a glass bottles in each hand. The woman’s jump had her out of her chair and all the way to the hallway. She would be able to move to the nearest exit in a heartbeat if they gave chase. Burkhardt ignored her flight and he stood in Morgan’s way so he couldn’t follow. He smirked at Morgan, calm. “She’s right. She has an extensive inventory. The lab techs would be furious and if all the German labels are right, there’s not a drop of human or animal in any of her products. I’m only guessing on the French, but I’d bet it’s all plants too, made mostly from her garden and greenhouse out back. You’re _weirder_ , aren’t you?” He asked the woman poised for flight.

“Yes,” she said slowly. She looked between the two men. “Are you a federal agent?”

“Nope,” Burkhardt told her cheerfully. “I’m a detective, Nick Burkhardt. From…”

“Portland,” she finished his sentence. “I’ve heard of you.”

Burkhardt chuckled. “Probably from the same informant that pointed me in your direction.”

The woman almost grinned and tilted her head. “No.”

Burkhardt blinked and blinked again. “Wait… Robin?”

“My niece.”

This time Burkhardt’s smile was genuine. “How is she doing? I haven’t heard from her since the court hearing.”

“Much better thanks to you. She’s finally dating again.”

Burkhardt frowned. “Did someone vet him? Her taste in guys…”

“I’ve met him and he’s much better than the last.”

“No where to go but up,” Burkhardt said darkly. “Alley cat,” he grumbled.

Morgan was watching it all carefully. The woman was still ready to run. She still kept the counter as a barrier between herself and Burkhardt, but she was waiting, judging the detective. She was giving him a chance. Morgan realized that the detective must have come in the back way and could have surprised them by appearing on the other side of the counter. He had deliberately chosen _not_ to corner the woman. He had given her an opportunity to flee, and she hadn’t totally. After watching Burkhardt stand in De Dau’s way, cut off the runner and herd Grogan, Morgan knew it could not have been an accident. They were in some sort of delicate dance, a two-step that Morgan hadn’t seen negotiated before. The FBI agent didn’t matter in her mind, at all. He wanted to push, but Burkhardt knew more about these circles than Morgan ever would. Burkhardt was extremely good at cultivating CI’s. He was obviously aiming for something a little more long term then the current case.

The paused extended and tension mounted. “ _Weirder_?” Morgan asked.

“Vegan,” Burkhardt told him cheerfully. “Definitely not the type that would hack up humans for money. But…” he waved at the papers on the bulletin board, “as the person who runs the local support group, you would know who is.”

She considered him more. “They don’t have a storefront. It’s all through a post office,” she finally said. “I’ve heard that they are… harvesting semi-locally. No idea where.”

Burkhardt lean forward, eyes intent. “Do you know who they’re killing? No one population is taking a serious hit and they are mass producing.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I know they’re in a bayou. I don’t know any more than that.”

Burkhardt put the two jars he had picked up from the back storage on the counter and between them he slid his business card and a copy of his original list. “Please ask the others in the support group and if any of them have further information, give me a call. I’m also looking for the French translations. If you could add them in and fax this back to me, I greatly appreciate it.”

“Fax it to Precinct Eight,” she sneered. Obviously she knew how crooked it was.

“If you text me beforehand. I’ll catch it as it arrives and clear the buffer,” he promised. “It’ll be a favor.”

She considered it. “My family would be even with yours?”

“They would.”

The woman seemed pleased with the promise.

“It was very nice to meet you,” Burkhardt told her.

She blinked in surprise. “…And I you. I’m Melissa Rueben, Detective Burkhardt.” Burkhardt grinned at her and she cautiously smiled back. “You are nothing like I expected.”

“Good.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“I look forward to it, Ms. Rueben.” And then Burkhardt herded Morgan to the exit.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Morgan grumbled. “I’m allowed to say goodbye to the pretty lady too.”

“Not interested,” she called.

Burkhardt laughed at the two of them. “I was trying to save you from being shot down.”

Morgan shrugged. He didn’t get shot down often. He waited until the office door closed behind them before teasing, “Another day, another CI?”

“Here’s hoping.”

“What was that about the support group?”

“Of people that have either tried the medicines and are trying to stop or people who haven’t started but need support to keep it that way. From what I’ve heard, the, ah potions are addictive.”

“You think she’s withholding information.” Morgan paused, ready to return to Ms. Rueben and start asking some pointed questions.

Burkhardt pushed him toward the car. “Nah. If Ms. Rueben’s leading it, the group’s probably more of the ‘never started’ variety, so they wouldn’t go looking for a source. People who are trying not to go back to it would want someone stronger as a leader.”

“Why would anyone even consider it?”

“If you were dying from something and knew there was a cure out there, but it required the death of a stranger, would you take it?”

“No!”

“Even if the death had happened six months ago, I mean, the person is long dead and the bit of them that will cure you is sitting right there on the shelf.”

“No! You don’t create a demand for it.” 

“What if it was your mother dying or your sisters? It’s not like you would have to tell them the source.”

“My mother would slap me upside the head for considering it. Even if it would save her life, which, it’s witchdoctor stuff, how likely is that?”

Burkhardt shrugged. “Not everyone has your moral fortitude.”

Morgan thought through the encounter. Burkhardt had left a copy of his cheat sheet behind, for a very specific purpose. “I thought you had someone looking up the French for you? And she was labeling everything in German, would she know the French?” Morgan asked. Burkhardt had mentioned an alternate CI early in the day. And since he had such success with getting cooperation from Ms. Rueben and every other person he had targeted, Morgan assumed similar successes with the ones the detective didn’t advertise.

“New CI,” Nick said and his grin danced with secrets. “I’m still at the trust but verify everything stage. This CI might never leave that stage. I’m hoping that if Ms. Rueben doesn’t know the name for something, she’ll know someone who will.”

Morgan understood. “Trust but verify.”

“Yep.” Burkhardt had never before showed doubt at knowing whether a CI’s words were truth or lie. This unnamed informant was in a class of his/her own.

“Where’s the next person on our possible distributor’s list?”

“Two miles up the road.”

“Let’s keep going.”

*grimm*cm*


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to all who reviewed after the last posting, especially those who reviewed what appeared to be an abandoned story. Those little notes in my e-mail made this happen.

*grimm*cm*

Hotch ordered the team to all return to the station for a team dinner. They discussed their results and the events of the past several days. Garcia was hitting a brick wall with the website, which posed a selling place for cheap, knock-off supplements. She could see that there was more to it, but one needed a password to get to the human slaughtering partition. She was frustrated and determined and most certainly not giving up on the hacking. Morgan and Burkhardt had gotten the most confirmation of a local slaughter house, but no one else was talking. Ms. Rueben had faxed over the French equivalent of the all the words for the human bits and parts. Burkardt’s unnamed CI from Portland had also faxed in a matching list, along with all of the Latin words and a handful of Russian. Morgan watched, amused, as Burkhardt double-checked the unnamed CI’s work against Ms. Reuben’s as the team sorted out the individual take-out containers.

“Still trust but verify?” Morgan teased him. “He came through this time.”

Burkhardt shrugged. “Storing up trust for the inevitable lie. Trust but verify possibly forever.”

The conversation veered off toward the most untrustworthy informants the team had been forced to work with. Rossi had a laundry list of them but he was a good storyteller and was trying to keep the team upbeat.

Burkhardt paused mid-bite and interrupted Rossi’s accounting with, “Did Eliza Grogan ever come to the station for questioning?”

“No,” Rossi answered. “Deborah Grogan of the law firm is still giving us the run around.”

“Has anyone set eyes on Eliza since we didn’t let her into the criminals’ house?”

The team looked at each other. “No,” Hotch responded for the group.

Burkhardt muffled his curse by shoving a last mouthful of his meal into his mouth. “Have Garcia find where she lives,” he ordered Morgan.

Morgan shoved his last bite into his mouth as well. He swallowed quickly and grabbed his phone to follow. “You think she ran? Where?”

“Keep us updated,” Hotch ordered before they were out of earshot.

“I hope she ran,” Burkhardt corrected, “but the people she works for don’t tolerate mistakes, especially from something as avoidable as procrastination.”

“You think she’s dead,” Morgan said.

“Yes.”

The ever-reliable Garcia had Grogan’s address sent to their phones before Burkhardt even started the car and on Burkhardt’s hunch, was checking all flights from New Orleans to Europe, specifically France. Eliza Grogan had paid for a flight to Paris that was supposed to leave in fifteen minutes but she hadn’t checked in yet. Garcia couldn’t tell if the lawyer was in the airport or not.

“Should I send the team to the airport?” Garcia asked. “Or tell airport security to apprehend her?”

“She’s a lawyer and we don’t have a warrant,” Morgan said. “We didn’t even verbally ask her to stay in town.”

“She’s not there,” Burkhardt said with certainty. He pulled into the driveway to Grogan’s high priced apartment complex and shook his head. “We’re too late.”

Once again, Morgan couldn’t spot the clues that told Burkhardt everything. “You could be wrong.”

Burkhardt shook his head again and, instead of heading toward the apartments, walked to the garbage cans waiting on the curb. He opened the first one and slumped. He dragged both cans to the front door. Morgan peeked into the first can, expecting to see a body, but saw an expensive suitcase instead. Morgan pulled on vinyl gloves and lifted the suitcase out of the can. He lost his balance for a second because it was so heavy. 

The FBI agent put the luggage on the sidewalk and unzipped it. It was stuffed full of women’s clothing and accessories, all in Grogan’s size. Burkhardt pulled a matching suitcase out of the second garbage can.

“There are her favorite shoes,” Burkhardt pointed. Morgan recognized them from the only meeting he had had with the woman. There was no denying the fact that Eliza Grogan was probably dead. He sent a text to update the team of that fact.

“Trying to make it look like a suicide,” Burkhardt muttered.

“Likely,” Morgan agreed. He looked at the messages popping up on his phone. “Hotch is fast-tracking a warrant so we can get inside. Rossi, Prentiss, Reid and JJ are on their way and will pick it up.”

Burkhardt nodded and started dismantling the suitcases. He didn’t care about the clothes but found piles of euros and two different passports in the linings. The jewelry got its own pile as well. Grogan apparently preferred silver and diamonds.

“How much of that do you think is real?” Morgan asked, mostly to keep his mind off the probable dead body inside.

“Almost all of it.” Burkhardt eyed it all. “I’d double check with Spencer, but it’s more than 100grand. It wouldn’t last her long in Europe, not the way she lived, but she would have been able to hide out for a couple of months, long enough to find herself a new job.”

“Spencer, huh?” Morgan pounced on the slip. “Just what is your connection with our genius?”

“Your genius?” Burkhardt echoed.

“Come on, Reid knows to call you first thing. Garcia asks if he was going to pay for your plane ticket and he volunteered to go pick you up. He defended you against Rossi. He’s met at least one of your CI’s. Obviously you two have spent some time together, but why?”

“It really is none of your business.”

“First thought is always sex,” Morgan ignored Burkhardt’s comment and continued talking, “but you and Reid are both straight and from what I’ve picked up from Juliette, she’s not the type to share.”

“Doesn’t your team have a no profile the profiler rule?” Burkhardt asked, a little desperately.

“ _Spencer_ told us you broke that one before you even knew our names, so I get one freebie.”

“Do you really want to open that door?” Burkhardt challenged.

Morgan thought about it. He thought about how shaken Reid had been the first time, back in Portland. How Garcia had needed to encourage him. Burkhardt could see weaknesses and fault lines in a person’s history like other people read books. Did he want that focused on himself? Did he want to hear it all out loud? Morgan tried to be honest with himself. He didn’t think there was much with which Burkhardt could hurt him. He opened his mouth to say just that, but Burkhardt cut him off.

“Prentiss is going to be the first of the core to leave the BAU, but you’re next.”

Morgan caught his breath. He couldn’t imagine…

Burkhardt handed him the false passports. “Can you have Garcia check to see if there’re any plane tickets under these names?”

Morgan woodenly accepted the passports, still trying to comprehend the idea of the BAU without Emily Prentiss or himself without the BAU. What on earth had led Burkhardt to that conclusion? Or was he just trying to shut up Morgan’s line of questioning? He was certainly effective in that regard.

“Are you going to join the team to fill in the gaps?” Morgan demanded. He would leave if he knew that Burkhardt was watching everyone’s backs. He was an extremely proficient profiler, he was fast on his feet and Morgan would bet money that the man could tackle a suspect efficiently. 

“Not unless a lot changes in Portland. It’s extremely unlikely.”

“How long do we have with Prentiss?”

“Less than a year.”

Morgan dropped the impossible conversation (no one really knew what another would do in a year’s time, let alone longer) and called up His Girl. She would bring light and order to his world, all the while retrieving the needed information. He flirted with her to distance himself from Burkhardt and his pronouncements. Burkhardt didn’t mind being ignored. He was texting on his phone when the rest of the BAU arrived. Shortly after them, the on-site maintenance man appeared to let them into the apartment. He confirmed that building itself did not have any digital security. The individual residents provided and maintained their own. They had to buzz up any visitors that rang for them. A quick glance at Grogan’s buzzer had no fingerprints. Grogan’s apartment was on the second floor and showed no signs of forced entry. The maintenance man couldn’t think of any other way into the apartment but through the front door.

“Do you smell that?” Burkhardt asked outside Grogan’s door.

Morgan didn’t, but Reid’s nose wrinkled like he caught the tiniest whiff of something rotten. Rossi unlocked the door and Reid reeled back. “I smell it now.”

Morgan, Rossi, Prentiss and JJ didn’t smell it until the door was actually opened a crack. It was the stench of blood and a body in the beginning stages of decomposition. The FBI team cleared the apartment for safety reasons. Burkhardt waited outside, still texting. Once they deemed it safe, Burkhardt was in the apartment, eyes roving over everything and his steps taking him straight to the ornate bathroom and the claw foot tub where Eliza Grogan lay dead in a pool of her own blood, fully dressed. She had gashes up the veins of both arms and the stained straight blade had been dropped beside her.

“Why didn’t they just force pills down her throat or some poison?” Reid asked. “We know that she’s brewed it up before. It’s not very convincing to have a woman slit her own wrists with no evidence of depression or previous suicide attempts. It’s the last way a woman like Grogan would do it, for the first attempt.”

Rossi winced at the word ‘brewed,’ and Burkhardt smiled grimly in response. He waved a hand at the bloody woman in the tub. “Hiding defensive wounds and,” he steered Reid to the dishwasher and the two –now clean- wine glasses within. “Sh…. The unsub’s first attempt was with a poison in the wine and Grogan was too smart for that.” He dug into the garbage but shook his head. “They took the wine bottle with them.”

“Tear this place apart,” Rossi ordered. “Hopefully the unsub left a link between here and where they’re slaughtering humans. And you’re correct,” he told Burkhardt, “The unsub responsible for this part of the operation is female.”

“Oh, someone from the law firm did this,” Burkhardt commented, off handedly, like he did with the rest of his unconscious profiling. “But I’m hoping that they didn’t realize how much Grogan had bought from the slaughterers and didn’t look for her stash.”

“Especially since she hid it better than ever after we spooked her,” Morgan added.

The team divided the apartment into sections and searched it thoroughly. It took a couple hours, but Burkhardt did find her stash of human ‘ingredients’ inside an interior wall of the kitchen. Prentiss found her financial papers and a bill due for fresh human heart. When Burkhardt saw it, he looked confused. “I’m surprised they let her run up a credit. I would have thought everything was prepaid.”

“So either they owed Grogan a favor,” Prentiss surmised, “or they were closer to Grogan than Tully and the three gang members that killed him. Friends, even?”

Rossi renewed his theory. “So they could have come to kill her. A wine glass, a knife. These are all close contact weapons. Grogan knew her attacker; she buzzed them up. It could have been one of the slaughterers.”

“They would have taken the body,” Burkhardt argued. “It would have been worth something to them and with the plane tickets already bought, everyone would have assumed that she was out of the country and not dead when she turned up missing. No, whoever left her behind is not one of the slaughterers. They might have owed her a favor. Can we get a hold of her case files and see if we can find anything that might link her professionally to the slaughterers?”

“I’ll sic Garcia on it,” Morgan promised. The computer tech needed a couple battles she could win. She was still losing against the supplement ordering website. Grogan’s laptop was in route to Garcia for her to hack from a computer known to have previously done the ordering. She was hoping for cookies or a history file that she could follow.

*grimm*cm*

After two days tearing apart Eliza Grogan’s apartment and electronic footprint, the BAU was satisfied that they had found all possible clues. It wasn’t much, a couple bills due and a law case file about a land settlement of three hundred acres, in some sort of (intentional) probate limbo. Three hundred acres that no one could claim seemed perfect for a human slaughter house. The only problem being, three hundred acres in the bayou would be impossible to search. 

The team returned to the police station and once again took up residence in the conference room. Hotch and Rossi had been switching out while the others at been at the scene of the crime.

The team had just settled in for dinner around the conference room when the electricity went out. They quipped about the back-up generations taking a full minute to kick in, and then when they didn’t, the team realized that it was some sort of attack. Reid had been reading through Eliza Grogan’s case files looking for additional cases that might pertain. He and JJ were ordered to stay with the files, while the others would confiscate the flashlights from the police officers outside and find the source of the problem.

Ten minutes later, the lights turned back on. Morgan reported that someone had simply unplugged the back-up generator from the rest of the building, possible a day or two ago. Then they had flipped the main breaker to the building. Very low tech, but possibly indicating assistance inside the building, or an ability to blend in with the actual officers.

The assistant police chief looked confused but not worried when the lights came back on.

Reid tilted his head that way. “He, at least, thinks that the slaughterers did it to remove… evidence? But he’s rather surprised that they didn’t ask him for assistance. He’s surprised that they gave him plausible deniability.”

“Agreed,” Burkhardt concurred. “Let’s check the evidence locker for whatever is missing.”

Morgan followed on their heels, he remembered that he was supposed to stick to Burkhardt for the entirety of the case. Burkhardt, obviously, could have his bathroom breaks and privacy for his phone calls and he couldn’t have gone far without a flashlight during the blackout, so Morgan was doing his job.

*grimm*cm*

“Now what?” Rossi grumbled. He could read the trouble on his friend’s face. “Did Morgan and Reid figure out whatever evidence the slaughterers were after?”

“Eliza Grogan’s body disappeared from the morgue before the autopsy,” Hotch reported. “It happened when the electrical was cut to the building.”

“So that’s what they were after. At least Burkhardt didn’t see _that_ coming. He would have warned us.”

Hotch nodded. “His natural profiling has gotten sharper and the classes he has been taking has only improved it.”

“What on earth could have been in that body that they didn’t want found?” asked Rossi. “Unless it’s the slaughterers. They figured that they could cut her up and sell some of her? Recoup their losses from whatever she owes them? It means that Burkhardt was correct and they weren’t the ones that killed her.”

“That’s a thought. Forensics are trying to find clues, but they aren’t hopeful.”

“We need a hard clue to the slaughterers themselves. Even if we went to the media with our profile, no one would really be able to identify them. The group is way too insular for that.”

*grimm*cm*


	10. Chapter 10

*grimm*cm*

Deborah Grogan was furious at the disappearance of Eliza’s body, more so than the fact that Eliza was killed and the body had been staged to appear a suicide. She stomped into the police station and utterly ignored the chief of police and demanded that the FBI find the body. She absolutely refused to be in the same room as Burkhardt. So for the sake of getting answers, JJ and Morgan took her to an interrogation room for privacy and Burkhardt stayed with Hotch in the conference room.

The two worked in silence until Burkhardt’s phone rang. He frowned at the number on his screen and immediately answered it. The person on the other end didn’t even let him say hello before they flooded the phone line with a rushed garble.

“What do you mean, they’re doing something and Aunt Diana is screaming? Have you called the cops yet? Get her out of there if it’s at all safe.” Burkhardt’s voice was tight with worry. “Hang up. Do all that and get back to me.” Burkhardt was watching Reid collide with the suspect secretary in the middle of the bullpen. The body language was easy enough to read. Both parties were apologizing for the crash and then both parties were alarmed and frightened and backing up from each other. When the secretary saw Reid’s fear, she started to approach with a predatory look on her face. 

Burkhardt _jumped the conference room table_ , rushed into the bullpen and stepped in the middle of the confrontation faster than Hotch could blink. Burkhardt stood over Reid protectively. Hotch couldn’t hear what Burkhardt said, or even see if he simply glared. It was enough to send the woman scurrying away. Burkhardt stared down every other suspect in attendance. He managed to coax Reid to his feet. The genius was flinching from almost everyone and Burkhardt was trying to herd him into an empty interrogation observation room far away from Deborah Grogan and the rest of the BAU. Burkhardt seemed to be in control of the situation.

Hotch was going to give Reid three minutes to calm down (it’d take that long to brew Reid’s tea, two cups since Burkhardt seemed to like the horrible smelling stuff as well) and then he was going to join the men. He had never seen Reid act like that before. He had never seen police officers cower like they did before Burkhardt.

He was going to get some answers. 

*grimm*cm*

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Nick kept up the quiet litany as he pushed Spencer to sit down. 

“I didn’t think the hallucinations would advance this fast.”

“You’re not hallucinating.”

“I saw that woman turn into something with a mouse face!” Spencer yelled.

“Did you see Officer Rupert turn into a snake?”

“Yes! Wait! How did you know that? Hallucinations don’t work like that.”

“I saw it too. The special vision is hereditary. You’re not crazy. I’m not crazy. They really do woge into other animals especially when they see us, people like you and me. They’re called Wesen. We’re called Grimms and together there is an entire subculture that most people miss. This entire case has been bumping into Wesen and their ilk.”

“The BAU doesn’t miss subcultures.” But there was no denying that Nick had advantage in questioning all persons of interest of the current case and then there was what Morgan had reported in the chiropractor’s office.

“This is the first time the BAU found human parts as medicine and it’s a billion dollar business. It’s been around for centuries. Most of that handout -and all of the Spanish- was from one of your mother’s journals.”

Spencer gaped. Finally, he asked, “My mother?”

“Had many more problems than being a Grimm,” Nick finished diplomatically. “That’s what we are, that’s why we can see them. Aunt Diana understands the subculture even better than I do. She sees like we do; it’s part of how she could spot her new bodyguards instantly.”

“Had?” Spencer latched on to the past tense verb.

Nick winced. “I’m waiting on a phone call. She’s been playing a very dangerous game, she instigated an experiment and it backfired horribly if you are now a Grimm. It’s not supposed to happen until another Grimm is dying or dead.”

Spencer scrambled for his phone. He had to call his Mom, the sanitarium, he had to… Nick plucked the phone out of his hands. “No. You can’t do anything to make Gheno think that you’re already a Grimm. That’ll put your mother into much more danger. She was still alive, last I heard. The cops were being called. We are hours away by plane, panicking now does no one any good. At this point, we can’t do anything but wait for her bodyguard to call the local cops and get back to us.”

“This is the big family secret. Wesen and Grimms.” Spencer’s mind was working a thousand miles an hour, trying to focus on anything but the helplessness of being so far away while his mother could be dying.

“It’s much, much more involved but yes. There are good Wesen and bad Wesen just like there are good people and bad people. There are good Grimms and bad Grimms,” Nick admitted. “The good Grimms police the Wesen and the bad Grimms hunt them.” Nick saw Hotch approaching, with two cups of tea. In the time it took the Agent In Charge to juggle both and the door, Nick told his cousin. “This is a huge secret. You can’t tell anyone, especially the BAU. They can’t see what you see.”

“They’d think I’m crazy,” Spencer said mournfully.

Nick helped Hotch with the door and he brought in the tea, two cups of Spencer’s special family blend. “What’s going on?”

“Family stuff,” Nick summarized obliquely. Spencer was still completely unraveled, but he could admire the way Nick told the truth in such a way that Hotch wouldn’t be able to spot the omission.

The BAU chief blinked. “Aunt Diana?”

Nick nodded. “Diana Reid, second cousin, once removed. She asked that I call her aunt. Something happened at the sanatorium.”

Hotch looked to Spencer for confirmation, but that was just a formality. Hotch had been there when Spencer had called up Nick in the beginning and had been there when Spencer had defended him against Rossi. Spencer nodded shakily. “And what happened out in the bullpen?”

Nick nearly growled, his stance just as protective as when he stood over his cousin. “They must have found out a little about Aunt Diana and were going to pick on him.”

“How?” Hotch queried. It seemed impossible that they would know.

Nick considered the BAU chief and finally admitted. “Diana provided me with the Spanish words in that first handout. The one where I listed what different human body parts were sold as.”

“She did?” Hotch was surprised by the revelation and Spencer was still floundering, not absorbing the ramifications.

“A decade ago, she crossed the harvesters, but they weighed the odds and decided that she was unlikely to be a threat. No one would believe her if she went to the cops and she didn’t because she noticed that some cops were in on the operation. Killing her on the other hand would have opened up a shit-storm they weren’t ready for. So they’ve kept an eye on her, someone in the sanatorium, especially since Spencer has been spending time with me and even more now that Spencer caught this case.”

“Her doctor has been acting squirrely,” Hotch remembered another conversation.

“Yes, she was and she has total control over my mother’s heath treatments.” Spencer finally spoke in his boss’ presence. “Hotch, can you give us some privacy? Nick knows a lot more about my mother’s current medical condition, that I really need right now.”

Because Spencer asked, Hotch nodded and walked out. He had heard Nick’s side of the conversation and knew slightly more than Spencer. He knew that Diana Reid had been screaming in pain. She must have been punished for the BAU’s work.

Nick breathed a sigh of relief. He never would have been able to get rid of the Agent In Charge so fast. “I will tell you everything,” he promised Spencer, “but first there is one more phone call I have to make, while there’s still time.”

*grimm*cm*

A call from Portland’s Grimm’s private line –while he was on loan to the FBI- to Portland’s Prince’s private line demanded immediate privacy to answer. “Yes?” he said after he kicked all of the detectives out of his office.

“I have information that will be very useful to you if you get it now, but I want it to cancel the favor I owe you,” Nick said. “And I want one of my own in reserve.”

It only took Sean a second to weigh the options. “Granted.”

“The experiment failed. They didn’t remove it from the line, it merely passed on early.”

Sean could fill in the blanks and resisted the urge to curse loud and long in French. His interfering cousin had activated a Grimm in a mobile FBI unit. “How recently?”

“Not ten minutes ago. We still don’t know Diana’s current condition.”

Sean easily could have been informed before his cousin. He had a chance to make a pointed statement as to his competency. Well worth the favor the Grimm wanted in reserve. He texted his pilot to be ready to fly to Las Vegas within the hour. If he could arrive before his cousin… the possibilities were optimistic. “I’ll be in out of town, make sure your messages get passed through.”

“Will do.” 

*grimm*cm*

Nick looked up and saw Spencer staring and his hands shaking. “Drink your tea,” he urged. “It’ll help calm you.”

“You were playing politics.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “It happens. It’s not nearly as brutal as it normally runs.”

“How brutal is normal?”

“Heads on a pike.” Nick quipped. 

Spencer told him. “And when you say ‘Heads on a pike’?”

“Nearly every Wesen has some relative that was killed by a Grimm and few Grimms die of old age.”

“Why did you call… who was that?”

Nick ignored the second question and answered, “He can get to your mother’s side faster than we can, with the power to control the situation and with an intense desire to make things go in our favor.”

“And you got an additional favor out of it,” Spencer added.

“Which I’ll probably be using on whatever needs done, but it’s good to be ahead, if only for a couple hours.”

“So we’re waiting for your bodyguard to get back to us.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I understand how hard this must be for you but rushing to the airport right now wouldn’t be in anyone’s favor.”

“Hotch would let us use the BAU plane.”

“Spencer, by the time we returned, the unsubs in our current case would have moved on. They know we’re close and are probably closing up shop as we speak. We have to catch them here and now, because they would start up their whole-sale killing as soon as they settled again. That’s a lot of people we’re sentencing to death to fly to Las Vegas. I’m sorry.”

“Our unsubs are Wesen, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what you were identifying in the beginning, the number of Wesen in the bullpen, not the number of people using the human remains for whatever reason.”

“Did I not make that clear?”

“No. And on purpose, I might add.”

Nick smiled grimly. (And Spencer winced at the mental description.) They both spared a moment to glance at Nick’s silent phone.

“How did this happen to you?” Spencer asked desperately. “How did you find out?”

“My Aunt Marie showed up out of the blue, just after I had started seeing things, things that couldn’t possibly be real.”

“Your Aunt Marie had three different attempts on her life while she was dying of cancer.”

Nick huffed with dark humor. “And Bloody Mary Kessler managed to die from disease and not injury.”

“Definitely a Grimm.”

“Yes.”

“As in the Grimm Brothers, you told me on the first case we worked. Who wrote very bloody fairy tales.”

“Yes to the Grimm Brothers. No to the idea that the tales were in any way imaginary.” 

“And the assassins, like the… unsubs in all of the tales, those were Wesen,” Spencer profiled.

“Yes, but Spencer, they’re not all bad. The chiropractor that helped Morgan and me. She’s Wesen. So is Rosalee back home and Bud and Monroe. You met them. They’re good friends, great friends. Not all Wesen are bad.”

“Dr. Gheno. She knows that I can… become? Had the genetic tendency toward being a Grimm. She’s a Wesen.”

“Same type as the Grogans, actually, a Hexenbiest. Every story that has a wicked witch? Think Hexenbiest.”

“And I chose her for my mother’s primary physician? How did I miss it?”

“Actually, your mother chose her. She had a plan to keep you safe and it worked very well for a very long time.”

“You said it was an experiment?” Spencer asked.

“Probably at your mother’s prompting. They were trying to separate the Grimm from the Reid family line. She was trying to ensure _this_ ,” He gestured to the shaking FBI agent, “never happened.”

“What happens now?”

“A lot of people are going to try to kill you. You have federal authority to travel and investigate crimes around the United States. As a Grimm, you’d have extra insight. You can arrest them or kill them in the line of duty.”

“But what happens to my mother now?”

“We’ll find out when we get the phone call. We can’t do anything but wait.”

*grimm*cm*


	11. Chapter 11

*grimm*cm*

While waiting, Spencer drank the tea intended for him and then the tea intended for Nick. It did settle his nerves and gave his hands something to fuss with while he interrogated his cousin.

Nick was not being forthwith with the information. He wanted Spencer to accept the big idea of Grimm and Wesen first, but that wasn’t how Spencer worked. He accepted a new truth after thoroughly exploring all the details of it.

“You said the Deborah and Eliza Grogan were Hexenbiest as well as Gheno. You said that Hexenbiest was essentially the wicked witch of every story.”

“Let me correct myself,” Nick butted in. “Hexenbiest is the witch in the story. Not all are bad.”

“You don’t have to talk me out of being… speciest, Nick. I’ll just evaluate each one as I meet them. Wait, they all are speciest against you…. They’re going to be speciest against me.”

“Yes, they are. That was part of what your mother was protecting you from, Spencer. Horribly enough, it’s the most benign part that your mother was trying to protect you from.”

“You’re distracting me, Nick. I need details. So Hexenbiest are real. Hexenbiest are witches. Witches are real and dangerous because -QED- _magic_ is real.”

“Yes,” Nick admitted slowly.

“ _How_ is magic real?”

“It’s like physics and chemistry that only apply to certain people. There are certain diseases that only apply to Wesen as well.”

“Nick, don’t coddle me. I need to know the information. There is no need to be so general. I’m a genius. I’ve been a member of the BAU for years. I can handle the ugly parts of this subculture that you are hiding from me.”

“They were magically experimenting on your mother and I don’t know if the local hospital can mitigate the effects,” Nick said.

Spencer sucked in his breath. He really didn’t want coddling, but…. He breathed deep. And breathed deep again. “Who can?”

“Rosalee, and I would trust her most to do it, but she’s nowhere near Vegas. And even if she were, I doubt she’d be able to get the hospital to go along with her suggestions.”

“But you sent your unnamed CI there.”

“He has a lot of authority within the Wesen world and quite a bit of magical knowledge. I trust him enough to do what’s best for your mother, if for no other reason than to get both of us on his side.”

“Your CI is your police chief.”

Nick’s jaw dropped and Spencer grinned at ferreting out at least one secret. “He has a lot of power. You wouldn’t let me hear his voice, because I would recognize it. He’s fluent in French because of his family in France. He had a favor he could call in to get information on De Dau that Garcia couldn’t. You respect him and he goes out of his way to stay on _your_ good side. It’s logical and I am a genius.”

“I won’t forget.”

“Good. De Dau?”

“Croc Wesen.”

“He called himself Sobek. Drowning of the victims. Home is the Nile River. Reptile… mask, that wasn’t a mask. Of course, now the profile makes sense. And that’s how he managed to degrade his DNA! He didn’t! Wesen actually have different DNA sometimes?

“When they’re woged,” Nick admitted.

“How is that possible?”

“I have no idea. Juliette is working on something to explain it. Adalind Shade has been… assisting.”

Spencer veered back onto the solid ground of discussing case. “Ms. Shade is a Wesen. She could see De Dau’s true features. The others probably could either. He was attacking people he viewed as prey. Wesen, specifically, he viewed as prey.”

“Yes, all of his victims were wesen. Well, the recent ones. I’m not sure of the children. I refused to inform the families of the bodies found. If they were Wesen, my presence would have scared them unnecessarily.”

“Why would they be scared if they haven’t done anything wrong?”

“And that’s the other side of the equation. Some Grimms are less discriminate in their… cases, no, for them, their hunts. Some of them have massacred entire families. One tried to drive certain types of Wesen to extinction. Congratulations, you are now the Wesen bogeyman.”

“How many have you killed?”

“Only your mother has had less kills in her Grimm career than I do. I have a reputation for rehabilitation.”

“You turn them into your CIs,” Spencer accused. “You leverage their fear for information. That’s how you collect so many so fast. They are desperate for you to not kill them.”

“I protect them,” countered Nick, “And try to calm their fears. I’ve arrested my fair share, the criminals. I try not to treat them different from regular people. My lawyer’s a Jagabar. Monroe’s a Blutbad and my best friend. He asked me to stand at his side for his wedding. And Adalind belongs to no one.”

“Rossi told me about the gym. The owner was afraid of you but the ‘nerds’ were looking to you to fix the problem…. They were expecting you to simply kill De Dau, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They can’t predict you,” Spencer realized. “You hunt them down, but you don’t kill them…” he read something on Nick’s face. “You have killed some.”

“It’s always last resort, Spencer. My first choice is friend, my second is CI, my third is truce, the fourth is disarmament, the fifth is arrest and my absolute last choice in any Wesen interaction is death. But yes, a few have ended up in a grave.”

“There isn’t a single hint of it in your record.” Spencer was starting to sound a little offended.

“Spencer, there is a group of Wesen whose entire job is killing Grimms. They call themselves Reapers.”

“… Grimm Reapers?” Spencer was incredulous. “Are you joking?”

“The scythe I took home says otherwise.”

“You took a trophy?!”

“Spencer, listen to yourself. I am not a serial killer that the BAU is trying to profile. I am a cop, who happens to see more than anyone around him. I am also a Grimm and lives and works in a completely different environment that most physically _can’t_ see. How am I supposed to explain in a courtroom that the well-dressed man in front of Your Honor actually changes facial features and can spit a venom that turns people into zombies? They wouldn’t be able to see the woge and by normal appearances, I cut the head off of an unarmed man. We walk a fine line between the normal world and the Wesen.”

“Most Grimms don’t,” Spencer said. “They eschew the normal life and fully immerse themselves in the Wesen hunt. And Wesens surround themselves with other Wesen. That’s why we are having so much trouble getting information on our unsubs of our current case, it’s a closed culture. Sealed shut.”

Nick let Spencer think in silence before quietly saying, “Cousin?”

“I’m suddenly comprehending why my mother volunteered for the experiment. Why she never fought me upping her dosage. She wanted to be dosed to the point that she didn’t have to deal with the overlapping realities.”

Nick didn’t answer. Spencer was going to have to come to grips with the truth on his own.

“Zombies, huh?” He distracted himself. “We were going to fly up to Portland, but seemingly over was done before we could close our current case. I hear the CDC still has an office up there investigating.”

“They’re not going to find anything.”

“You hope,” Spencer editorialized.

“No, they won’t. There’s enough Wesen involved on the operation that even if anything is found, it won’t stay found for long.”

“Closed culture,” Spencer reminded himself. “Sealed shut.”

“You’re on the inside now,” Nick told him. “I’m sorry if you don’t want to be.”

“It’s kind of amusing,” Spencer admitted. “Months ago, I flew out to Portland with the intent of learning this information and was sorely upset when I didn’t and now…”

Nick’s phone rang and with a glance, Spencer could see the Vegas area code.

Nick answered it with, “You’re on speakerphone with Diana’s son.”

“Uhh, does he know about… uh,” the unseen bodyguard stuttered.

“The Grimm?” Spencer filled in the blanks. “And the… Wesen?”

“First, Diana’s alive. She was removed from the… contraption, I don’t know what else to call it, and transferred to the local hospital. They’re doing a bunch of tests and treating her for shock. Gheno is being taken in for questioning.”

“Are you with Diana?” 

“Of course.”

“How does she look?

“She’s not really awake and groggy and as normal as she gets. Hey, wait. Huh. That’s the first time that happened.”

“What happened?”

“She no longer looks like a Grimm. Is that possible? She’s never been able to hide it before. Can you hide it?”

Nick didn’t answer the question. He had his own guesses and instincts to consider. “Stay with her. Monitor everything that they try to do to her. Keep me informed.”

“Yessir.”

“Excuse me,” Spencer called out. “Can you get me a copy of all of Gheno’s notes and even a photo of the contraption? I want to see the experiment.”

“Is that more important than staying with Diana?”

“No,” the Grimms chorused.

“Uhm. Yeah. How am I supposed to do it if I’m staying in the hospital?”

“Nevermind. We’ll get it another way. Your responsibility is Diana’s health and nothing else.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Thank you and we’ll settle accounts when we visit her soon.”

“Tell Mom that I’ll be there as soon as this case is over. I think she’ll understand.”

The bodyguard huffed. “You stopping the human harvesting, yeah, she’ll get it.”

“Thank you,” Nick said. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Sure, just so long as you guys survive taking down the harvesters.” The bodyguard hung up.

Spencer was still a bit adrift. “There’s a chance that we might not survive?” he asked.

“There’s always a chance, but I’ll have Hotch keep you behind for the actual assault.”

“No,” Spencer declared. “You seem to be forgetting that I am a fully credentialed FBI agent. I’m not some civilian to be left in the van.”

“Spencer, I survived my first year pretty much because of luck and friends. You are now a target beyond anything previous. I’m trying to give you a cushion to get used to the Grimm.”

“I understand that there’s a subculture and it’s adversarial. Knowing that there’s more to learn doesn’t put me at a too much of a disadvantage. I can still function. I can do better than the rest of the BAU who don’t know even this much.”

Nick rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. “There is so much more and we don’t have time to get into it right now. We have a case. Just please, follow my lead and when this is over, take your vacation in Portland, weeks of it so that you can learn and get used to everything.”

“I have to take care of my mother,” Spencer protested.

“We will, I promise. But you have to be informed on the subculture.”

“Couldn’t you just send me the books?”

“No.”

“Are you holding information hostage?”

“If that’s what it takes to get you training? Yes. Look, just promise to follow my lead on the case, please?”

“Nick, I’m the one with all of the experience. You should be following my lead.”

Nick was not about to promise that. “Promise that you’ll stay close?” he tried a compromise.

“I can promise that.”

“Good. Let’s get back to work.”

*grimm*cm*

The conference room was incredibly busy when they returned to the team, and the full team was present. Everyone was examining folders and Morgan was tacking a satellite image to the bulletin board. The team did pause long enough to smile at the cousins, letting Reid know that the secret was out of the bag.

“What’s all this?” Burkhardt asked.

Hotch looked up from the folder in his hand. “With the now known connection of Reid’s mother and her physician, I had Garcia pull Dr. Gheno’s phone records, looking for any calls from a New Orleans area code.”

“And hit pay dirt,” Burkhardt surmised.

“Yesterday, they called from a local cell phone that Garcia was able to track to an isolated cell tower. It’s still on and has been in the same building for the last twenty-four hours, and the building is on the eastern part of the land Grogan put into probate,” explained the unit chief. “We’re going to meet SWAT there as soon as we can develop a way to approach the house without being seen. We’re going to need swamp boats. The house is technically on an island and I’m sure the unsubs are watching the only bridge to it. When we approach the house, we’ll block of the bridge. They won’t be able to escape. It might turn into a siege but we’d win in the end.”

“They hurt my mother to get me out of town,” Reid whispered. He looked at his cousin. “They hoped that you would go with me.”

“They are trying to close up shop. That’s why they called Gheno. They want to kill and harvest as many as possible and move off of the island where they’d be trapped.” Burkhardt’s face hardened. “They must have a bunch alive in their possession, captive. That’s the only reason they haven’t left already. The bottleneck in their process is the actual harvesting. They can only do one at a time and the person with a knife must take breaks? I don’t know, but they are trying their hardest to buy more time.”

Rossi shook his head in disbelief. “They are absolutely sure that you will find them and kill them if they stick around. What did you do to earn such fear?”

“It’s inherited,” Burkhardt admitted.

“The grandparents!” Reid exclaimed. “The ones that taught both our mothers how to track in the woods and the various languages. They were vigilantes against the human slaughterers.”

“Don’t paint them as good guys, Spencer,” Burkhardt said. “Don’t profile them based on what you know of your mother. Base your profile on the fact that your mother completely separated you from their influence. They were fanatical and actively created collateral damage in their mission to destroy the human slaughterers. There’s a very good reason why our mothers never told us about them.” Burkhardt address the rest of the BAU. “That’s why they fear me, because they think I’m the same as a murderous couple that died before I was born.”

He waved his phone. “Look, my family history isn’t going to affect the case but I have got make some calls to my CI’s. If the unsubs here are pulling strings to get at Aunt Diana, then I have to update them. They are probably pulling other strings that will give us information.”

“Stay in sight,” Hotch warned. “Their fear of you is a tool we can only use if you’re still alive. If they are desperate enough to hurt an elderly woman half the country away, they are desperate enough to hurt the man right in front of them.”

Burkhardt agreed with a simple nod and walked out.

*grimm*cm*

A second phone call from the Grimm in the same hour was answered even faster than the first. The advantage of a private flight was that it was rerouted through the airplane itself so he was allowed to answer it. “What is it?” Sean asked.

“It was intentional,” the Grimm growled. “Someone ordered Gheno to go ahead with the experiment. I doubt she was ready on her own. The FBI tracked a phone call from New Orleans to Vegas within the last twenty-four hours. The timing is not a coincidence. They would win if Diana died and Reid –and I- rushed to her side. They would win if the experiment worked and the Grimm dissipated. And they would win if it failed and Reid suddenly became a …new… Grimm in the midst of this Wesen stronghold.”

So Sean’s cousin had been involved, but still, Sean could work with the knowledge. After all, the end result was a Grimm activated in a FBI mobile unit. “Understood.”

“In trade for another piece of information, I want absolutely every last piece of Gheno’s research.”

“Agreed.” Whether or not Sean would follow through after reading it all was another thing.

“Spencer figured out your identity from our conversation. Not the Royal part, or the family connection but everything else.”

That was… unfortunate, but good to know. “Are you bringing him to Portland for training?”

“I’m going to try, but he doesn’t see the need yet.”

“He will,” Sean promised.

*grimm*cm*

**Author's Note:**

> Note: (According to wiki) In Egyptian mythology, Seshat (also spelled Safkhet, Sesat, Seshet, Sesheta, and Seshata) was the Ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and writing. She was seen as a scribe and record keeper, and her name means she who scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying. These are all professions that relied upon expertise in her skills.  
> Mistress of the House of Books is another title for Seshat, being the deity whose priests oversaw the library in which scrolls of the most important knowledge were assembled and spells were preserved. Heliopolis was the location of her principal sanctuary. She is described as the goddess of history.


End file.
